The Observer, May 2008

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From the Executive Director: Looking back on the citizen oversight movement

The idea behind citizen oversight is that those with the most to lose from oil spills and other industrial accidents should have a say in the programs put in place to prevent and respond to them.

In Alaska, that principle is embodied in two organizations – our group and our sister organization, the Cook Inlet Regional Citizens’ Advisory Council. Both were established in response to the Exxon Valdez spill of 1989.

But we were not the first such organizations to be formed worldwide. From time to time, it’s useful to consider the history of citizen oversight and what it teaches about the movement.
Citizen oversight for the oil industry was born in 1975, when the Sullom Voe Association was created in the Shetland Islands of Scotland. It came out of an agreement between Shetland’s local government and more than 30 oil companies. BP – also a major player in Alaska – was the operating company.

The non-profit association was established to supervise the construction and operation of the Sullom Voe oil terminal, with the oil industry paying all costs. While this association does many of the same things we do, it’s also different in important respects: it actually built and owned some of the oil facilities at Sullom Voe, as well as a tug company that operated there. And it maintains two large endowment-type funds worth nearly $500 million, financing projects in such areas as social welfare, leisure, recreation, environmental education and economic development.

Vigipol, a French group formerly known as Syndicate Mixte, was created after the Amoco Cadiz spill of 1978; its board is made up of elected officials from the affected area. It’s funded in part by a settlement coming out of the Amoco spill, and it has done a good job of battling complacency. In 1989, the group sent a delegation to Alaska to provide assistance and advice after the Exxon spill.

Next came the two Alaska citizens’ councils. The two are similar, but funding for the Cook Inlet council is less secure than in our case. We’re funded chiefly by a strong, long-term contract with Alyeska Pipeline, whereas the Cook Inlet group’s budget comes from local municipalities and negotiations with the oil industry.

The oil industry has rightly received much credit for extensive prevention and response improvements in Prince William Sound since 1989. What’s less well known is that citizens were calling for such improvements even before the first barrel of Prudhoe crude started down the trans-Alaska pipeline to Valdez in June 1977.

Between the Prudhoe Bay oil strike in 1968 and the 1989 oil spill, citizens pushed for double-hull tankers, escort tugs, and comprehensive preparations for cleaning up an oil spill, among other things.

As had been the case with previous efforts at citizen oversight, it took a disaster to make clear the old way didn’t work. Our council was incorporated nine months after the Exxon Valdez spill, and we signed our contract with Alyeska in February 1990. The federal Oil Pollution Act was signed into law by the first President Bush about six months later, further buttressing the powers of the council.

The Pipeline Safety Trust, based in Bellingham, Wash., was created in October 2003. It is funded by earnings from a $4 million criminal fine resulting from a 1999 gasoline pipeline leak and explosion that killed three young people in Bellingham. The trust’s mission is to promote fuel transportation safety through education and advocacy, by increasing access to information, and by building partnerships with residents, safety advocates, government and industry.

The Washington State Oil Spill Advisory Council is the newest group with at least some component of citizen oversight. It was created by the Washington legislature in 2005 after a series of spills in Puget Sound. It is not fully independent, nor is it fully citizen-controlled. Its funding is subject to legislative appropriation, it reports to the state’s governor, and its board includes industry and government officials, as well as fisheries and environmental representatives.
What does this teach us about citizen oversight?

• It’s usually brought about by a disaster, though history suggests there would be fewer such disasters if citizen oversight were established at the same time as major oil projects and operations.

• Many of the achievements of citizen oversight have come despite initial opposition from the oil industry.

• Citizen oversight has taken on a variety of forms, the result of the different locations and circumstances that have brought it into being.

• The two most critical elements in any successful program of citizen oversight are independence and secure, adequate funding.

Even if the citizen oversight we have isn’t yet perfect, it’s a vast improvement over nothing at all. One reason the Oil Pollution Act embraced councils like ours was the need to improve trust among the public, the oil industry, and government regulators. That has indeed occurred in the 19 years since the Exxon Valdez spill.

We at the Prince William Sound council look forward to continuing and strengthening these crucial relationships in years to come so that future generations never have to learn first-hand what we did in 1989.

• John Devens is executive director of the Prince William Sound Regional Citizens’ Advisory Council.