The council’s board of directors elected its seven-member executive committee May 2 and 3 during a meeting in Valdez.
Prince William Sound Regional Citizens’ Advisory Council’s Executive Committee, 2013-2014, left to right: Thane Miller, Diane Selanoff, Patience Andersen Faulkner, Amanda Bauer, Blake Johnson and Marilynn Heddell.
Amanda Bauer, who represents the city of Valdez on the board, was elected president. She succeeds Dorothy Moore, who also represents the city of Valdez.
“I welcome the opportunity to assist in upholding the mission statement of the council,” said Bauer. “As a consumer of petroleum products, I feel it is very important to contribute when possible to help keep Prince William Sound and the downstream communities as healthy and safe as possible for all users – industry, regulators and citizens alike.”
Besides Bauer, the executive committee, which will serve until the board’s May 2014 meeting, is as follows:
Thane Miller, representing the Prince William Sound Aquaculture Corporation, will serve as vice president. Marilynn Heddell, representative of the city of Whittier, was elected as treasurer. Patience Andersen Faulkner, representative of the Cordova District Fishermen United will serve as secretary. The members at large are: Blake Johnson, Kenai Peninsula Borough; Diane Selanoff, Port Graham Corporation; and Steve Lewis, city of Seldovia.
The council also seated four new board members at the Valdez meeting. Jim Herbert now represents the city of Seward, replacing John French; Nick Garay now represents the city of Homer, replacing John Velsko; Robert Beedle represents the city of Cordova, replacing James Kasch; and Emil Christiansen represents the Kodiak Village Mayors’ Association, replacing Iver Malutin.
By KATE DUGAN
Valdez Communications Manager
Alyeska Pipeline Service Company
On Sunday, April 28, I stood on the deck of the tug/barge combo Krystal Sea/Cordova Provider for the Prince William Sound community of Tatitlek. The sun was shining, the winds calm, and I was surrounded by an enthusiastic group of health and wellness care providers. As we motored out of Port Valdez, everyone was outside taking pictures and laughing; a good start to an important event.
For the last 13 years, Alyeska has sponsored and supported the Prince William Sound Traveling Health and Safety Fair. For eight days, the Krystal Sea brings vital health and wellness services to communities of Cordova, Whittier, Chenega Bay, Tatitlek and Valdez. Our theme this year was “Healing our whole selves,” and the trip focused on health and well-being in all aspects of life, from blood pressure to nutrition, exercise, boating safety, music and meditation.
Participants gave a thumbs-up to this spring’s Prince William Sound Traveling Health and Safety Fair. Photo courtesy of Alyeska Pipeline Service Company.
There was a 6:15 a.m. provider meeting each morning to go over the day’s schedule and discuss any safety concerns. Then medical professionals set up screening equipment in the schools so that community members could drop by to track their blood pressure, cholesterol levels and other important health information. This year, the group screened over 100 community members- a great success!
We also brought along mobile mammogram unit. The “Mammo Van” is supplied by long-time partner the Breast Cancer Detection Center of Fairbanks. For women in these small rural communities, getting their annual mammogram means an expensive trip to Anchorage. This year, we were able to save 17 women that cost.
Providers headed into classrooms in Tatitlek, Chenega and Whittier to talk to students about drugs and alcohol, suicide, nutrition and other issues that are brought up by teachers beforehand. These are not easy subjects to discuss, and the volunteers had to be focused and prepared to confront difficult problems that bubble up in such small communities. I was so impressed with the grace, humor and compassion that the care providers wield in these classroom sessions.
Beyond the scheduled activities -there were easily over 50 of them- there were the smaller, quieter moments in the villages that I will remember most: teaching the two preschoolers in Tatitlek why some chords sound “scary” and some “happy,” watching the newly-formed Whittier dance team perform Maroon 5’s “Moves like Jagger”, and holding multiple babies in Chenega so their moms could eat or craft with both hands. When the tug returned Valdez, the weather had turned from spring back to winter, but the snow couldn’t dampen my mood. I was energized and proud that Alyeska sponsors such a special program, and that I have the privilege to tag along.
A big thanks to our partners at Providence Medical Center, Bering Marine, Chugachmiut, Cordova Family Resource Center, Breast Cancer Detection Center, Advocates for Victims of Violence and the State of Alaska.
The current Valdez Marine Terminal Oil Discharge Prevention and Contingency Plan, set to expire this past May, has been extended to December 9, 2013.
This plan, created and managed by Alyeska Pipeline Service Company, describes how the company would contain and clean up oil spilled from the terminal in Valdez. The plan is reviewed and updated every five years.
The proposed plan, submitted by Alyeska to the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation in October, contained a large number of changes, including being reformatted into four separate volumes. This short-term extension will allow the plan renewal process to continue until the department has conducted a thorough review. The agency has asked Alyeska to provide additional information on several areas of the plan. The council will have an opportunity to provide input to the department during this information-exchange phase.
Once that information is provided, the official public review will proceed. The council expects to submit final comments during the public review.
Because evaluating the effectiveness of oil recovery efforts during trainings and drills can be difficult, the council has been working to find an appropriate oil simulant. A simulant would mimic oil on water and provide responders with a practice target and help to increase proficiency with response gear and tactics.
In March, the council partnered with Cordova’s Oil Spill Recovery Institute and the Spill Control Association of America to host a workshop to address this topic. The workshop was held at the Seattle campus of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, or NOAA.
Although the council is interested in improving training locally, the broader goal of the partnership and workshop was to address simulant use on a national level.
Twenty-seven people participated, and the workshop featured two panels that addressed the need for simulants, permitting and other regulatory requirements, and concerns related to their use. The panels were composed of representatives from spill response organizations, NOAA, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, representatives from the U.S. Coast Guard’s National Response Team, and the council, among others.
The workshop concluded with a final group discussion on the next steps for this effort and consensus was reached on a number of items including:
There is a need for simulants. Some of the possible uses are: a training aid for practice with boom deployment, skimmer testing, recovery of spilled oil in arctic conditions, and tracking spilled oil.
Different materials have unique characteristics useful for varying goals and conditions. For example, floating wood chips could work for boom practice, but might not be practical for certain skimmers.
There is a difference between particle based simulants such as wood chips, pine needles or oranges, and liquid based simulants such as fish oil, or vegetable oil. This distinction could complicate the permitting process.
Raising public awareness of simulants and their benefits to spill response preparedness would be positive.
At the end of the workshop, the group had unanswered questions, such as:
Can an ongoing blanket permit for certain particle based simulants be achieved?
Do simulants need to be used in every exercise and deployment?
Would responders be liable if only a portion of the simulant were recovered?
While the idea seems simple, the issue is complex. Federal and state laws regarding permitting are unclear and full of potential obstacles.
The next stage of the project will be a white paper which will describe the topics and consensus items discussed at the workshop, and next steps. The council hopes that the paper can be presented at an upcoming oil spill response conference. Work continues with the goal of enhancing oil spill recovery efforts in Prince William Sound.
REPORT: The full report is now available on our Oil Simulants project page.
