Online Observer Archives | Page 5 of 93 | Prince William Sound Regional Citizens' Advisory Council

Community Corner: Renewed Kodiak Connections

July 16, 2025July 2, 2025 by Contributing Author

By Maia Draper-Reich
Outreach Coordinator

In April, Project Manager Danielle Verna and I were able to fly out to visit Ouzinkie, Alaska, thanks to clear weather and Council Board member Elijah Jackson. Jackson, who is the Kodiak Island community’s Mayor and Village Public Safety Officer, hosted us for a day connecting with community members of all ages.

First, we stopped by the Ouzinkie School, which has two small mixed-age classroom groups: Kindergarten-5th grade and 6th-12th grade. We spent time with each class teaching our Critter Clean Up lesson, a hands-on activity that allows students to learn about wildlife clean up during an oil spill. We discussed the Exxon Valdez oil spill, why the Council exists, and the work that we do. Then, the students experimented with different cleaning solutions using a faux bird feather to learn about the challenges of caring for oiled wildlife. The students had excellent questions and drew connections to their coastal community and the wildlife that live there.

Midday, the Council co-hosted a community reception at the Tribal Cultural Center with the City of Ouzinkie through Mayor Jackson and his staff. We shared some of the Council’s written materials and publications. Over lunch, which was provided by the Council for those who stopped by, Danielle and I chatted with community members sharing specific Council projects, hearing experiences from the Exxon Valdez spill, and learning their concerns about community preparedness for future spills. Community members were particularly curious about the spill equipment staged in Ouzinkie and logistics for using it during a spill.

We also had time to walk along the waterfront boardwalk, and visit with Mayor Jackson and his staff at the city’s office building. One of the city employees is a cat – in charge of pest control for the office.

In addition to our day in Ouzinkie, while in Kodiak, the Council hosted a booth at ComFish Alaska 2025, a commercial fishing trade show held every year. The event also features a series of forums and presentations including discussions with Alaska’s federal and state legislators. At the booth, Board members Aimee Williams, who represents the Kodiak Island Borough, and Wayne Donaldson, who represents the City of Kodiak, connected with Kodiak community members sharing the Council’s work. We heard stories from community members involved in aftermath of the Exxon Valdez oil spill and the formation of the regional citizens advisory councils in Prince William Sound and Cook Inlet.

I am grateful to be able to connect with our downstream community members, to share information and to hear their perspectives, including with the next generation of stewards of these lands and waters.

Volunteer Spotlight: Where physics meets the sea

July 10, 2025June 30, 2025 by Amanda Johnson

Pegau is a member of the Council’s Scientific Advisory Committee, a group of scientists and citizens promoting the environmentally safe operation of the terminal and tankers through independent scientific research, environmental monitoring, and review of scientific work.

W. Scott Pegau wasn’t born in Alaska, but it’s the place that feels like home.

When Pegau was a kid, his family moved to Alaska so his dad could attend the University of Alaska Fairbanks, or UAF. His dad was later hired by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, so the family stayed.

After graduating from high school in Nome, Pegau joined the Navy for 6 years, then headed to his dad’s alma mater, UAF, and later Oregon State University for graduate school. Pegau chose to major in physics.

“I avoided the natural sciences,” Pegau says. “So we both got a good laugh, because when I did come back up to Alaska, I was hired as a fisheries biologist.”

His journey from physics to fisheries is what makes his background particularly helpful in his role as a member of the Council’s Scientific Advisory Committee.

Atmospheric physics to ocean physics

For a while after undergrad, Pegau worked with atmospheric models at UAF’s Geophysical Institute. He liked the work but found that he missed being close to the ocean. He also found himself interested in the physics of light.

He combined these interests in a Ph.D. in oceanography from Oregon State University, where he focused on how light interacts with ocean water. He also studied how to use remote sensing technologies to gather ocean data.

He uses the colors of the sky and the ocean to explain how light can provide information. Blue light waves scatter across the atmosphere when they encounter particles.

“So when you look up, you see blue.”

He says sunrises and sunsets appear red because red light waves make it far enough into the atmosphere to reach the clouds. Pegau says the ocean appears blue for a different reason.

“Blue light has the greatest chance of reflecting back out of the water because it’s least absorbed.”

He says the light interacts differently according to what’s in the water. Particles or features in the water such as sediments or plankton can be identified by examining how light waves are reflected or absorbed.

“Each particle has a different kind of scattering characteristic,” he says. “If you’re trying to figure out how light transmits through the ocean, you’re trying to put those two things together: How is it being absorbed and how is it being scattered?”

Over the years, he traveled all over the northern hemisphere studying the optical properties of the oceans and looking at remote sensing methods to gain more understanding of the ocean, its currents, and inhabitants.

North to Alaska

In the early 2000s, he came back to a job at Homer’s Kachemak Bay Research Reserve. Finally settling in Cordova, he has coordinated and managed research projects for the Oil Spill Recovery Institute for the last 18 years.

Born out of the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, the institute funds research projects that improve oil spill response and seeks to better understand spills’ impacts to people and wildlife.

He’s also authored or co-authored papers on topics including remote sensing of spilled oil, the circulation of ocean currents, and the effects of crude oil on herring. The herring fishery in Prince William Sound disappeared a few years after the Exxon Valdez oil spill and has never fully recovered.

As he now prepares to retire, he’s excited to finish up a study on how the atmosphere and ocean conditions affect herring populations.

“I’ve really wanted to work on this particular project,” Pegau says. “I’m trying to determine what makes for a good herring year. Different factors come into play. Are the winds holding the larvae near the shore? Is the food the right size or the right type for the larvae?”

Volunteering for the Council

Pegau has been an ex officio member of the Council for many years as part of his work for the institute. He joined the Scientific Advisory Committee this past year, answering the committee’s call for an oceanographer.

He says he’s always appreciated the committee’s commitment to good science. He says their work is important for keeping Prince William Sound safe from spilled oil.

“If you want to protect resources, you better have good information.”

Council’s archives hold valuable lessons

August 19, 2025March 20, 2025 by Contributing Author

By Donna Schantz
Executive Director

Donna Schantz

Since its inception, the Council has placed a high value on keeping a historical record of documents related to the transportation of oil through Prince William Sound. This includes information that documents the background and rational for implementing many of the safeguards put in place based on lessons learned from the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Our archive today is home to over 36,000 files containing a wealth of information.

Many of these documents are scientific studies and technical reports sponsored by the Council, dating back to the early days of our existence. A great example are two studies conducted by Dr. Richard Fineberg in the early 2000s, one on the profits from the oil industry and another on how the industry plans to clean up its facilities after oil no longer flows through the pipeline.

Dr. Fineberg, who died in 2024, conducted studies for other organizations, and our internal document archives contain a record of many of them. A look through some of these is enlightening, such as his 1996 report titled “Pipeline in Peril – A Status Report on the Trans-Alaska Pipeline.” This report was sponsored by the Alaska Forum for Environmental Responsibility, which is no longer in business, to look into reports from “concerned employees” that Alyeska had been cutting corners, putting employees and the environment at risk.

These sentiments echo statements made by concerned employees starting in 2022, as documented in our 2023 report by Billie Pirner Garde titled “Assessment of Risks and Safety Culture at Alyeska’s Valdez Marine Terminal.”

Who is paying attention to these details?

After the Exxon Valdez oil spill, the U.S. Congress found that complacency on the part of industry and government was a contributing factor to the incident. The writers of the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 included a call for the creation of citizen councils to give citizens a voice in the decisions that can put their livelihoods, resources, and communities at risk.

Our organization is one of those councils. Our 2023 Garde report is a reminder that our mission and purpose are not only still relevant, but needed just as much if not more today. Fortunately, upon receiving the Garde report, Alyeska initiated a hard look at their safety culture, technical capacity, process and policy, as well as the safety concerns brought forward, and has taken actions to address many of the concerns.

Why is oversight important?

Walt Parker, former member of our Board, had a long history of involvement with the oil industry in Alaska. Among the many roles he served during his career, Parker was appointed chairman of the Alaska Oil Spill Commission that was created to investigate the causes of the Exxon Valdez spill. The Commission issued 52 recommendations to improve national, state, and oil industry policies, including one recommendation that called for the creation of our Council. In the forward to their final report, “Spill: The Wreck of the Exxon Valdez – Implications for Safe Transportation of Oil,” Parker described their efforts in the 1970s to design a system that would prevent spills from the soon-to-be oil transportation facility.

Parker wrote that the 1989 spill “could have been prevented if the vigilance that accompanied construction of the pipeline in the 1970s had been continued in the 1980s.”

Instead, as the commission discovered, by 1989, complacency and cost-cutting had returned, leading to disaster.

Fighting complacency

The Council was created, in part, in anticipation of a time when memories of the Exxon Valdez oil spill begin to fade. When there is no one left who can recall the smell of the oil, the sight of suffering wildlife, the feel of anger and despair because livelihoods may have been destroyed, it is more likely that protections may begin to appear stale, burdensome, and unnecessary.

The fact that there has not been another major oil spill in our region since 1989 is a testament to the safeguards put in place following that disaster. These safeguards are built on many lessons learned over time; historical knowledge that is key to maintaining our present system of prevention and preparedness. It is critical that industry, government, and citizen leaders remain cognizant of that history. The Council will always advocate for maintaining and improving our current systems, as well as staying vigilant against measures that could allow complacency to weaken existing protections.

Approval for oil spill contingency plan for terminal comes with conditions

July 10, 2025March 20, 2025 by Amanda Johnson

This past November, the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, or ADEC, approved the renewal of the oil spill contingency plan for the Valdez Marine Terminal. The approval came with conditions.

The plan, created and managed by Alyeska Pipeline Service Company, describes how the company plans to prevent spills from the terminal in Valdez, and how they would contain and clean up oil in case prevention measures fail. The approval followed several rounds of public comment, which began in 2023, and is subject to several conditions. This means the plan is tentatively approved, but there are required steps that must be taken for the approval to be valid.

Secondary containment liners must be evaluated

This image shows the giant crude oil storage tanks at the Valdez Marine Terminal. The walls of the massive asphalt-lined cells can be seen surrounding the tanks in this photo. — The Council has been concerned about these nearly 50-year-old liners for years. In 2023, the Council funded a project to evaluate methods that could be used to inspect the underground liners without excavating them.

As one of the conditions, ADEC is requiring that Alyeska conduct further analysis of the secondary containment liners underneath the crude oil storage tanks at the terminal’s East Tank Farm. These liners, made up of catalytically-blown asphalt, are part of a system that is intended to contain oil in the event of a spill, preventing contamination of surface and groundwater.

The liners are hard to inspect because they are covered with five feet of ground material.

Credit for a solid liner

Alyeska receives a 60% “prevention credit” from ADEC based on the integrity of these liners. This credit allows Alyeska to plan for a smaller spill, thus reducing the amount of equipment and responders that are listed in the plan to begin a quick response.

The credit is contingent upon the asphalt liner meeting ADEC’s “sufficiently impermeable” standard. This standard is based on a formula that determines whether the liner is solid enough that it can contain spilled oil until it is detected and cleaned up. Cracks and damage have previously been discovered in some areas when the liner has been exposed.

Request for public review of test results

In a November letter to the department, the Council requested that ADEC allow a public review of any changes that result from Alyeska’s analysis of the liner. The Council also requested the addition of a deadline for the analysis and corrective actions if the analysis finds that the liner is not sufficiently impermeable to meet ADEC’s standard. ADEC issued a decision that imposed deadlines for completion of the liner evaluation by 2028. The department did not include a public review or corrective actions.

Future updates

These plans are required to be updated every five years by industry and submitted for public review. This update to the terminal plan expires in 2029.

How and why do contingency plans change over time? Read a 2021 Council-sponsored report on how the plan for a spill from tankers developed over the years:

Every five years, this oil spill contingency plan is renewed. The process starts with Alyeska, who updates the plan to include new technology or lessons learned during drills.
A renewed plan is effective for five years, when the cycle will be repeated. This process ensures that the preparations for preventing and responding to oil spills will continue to improve.