Main Bay is 10 hours by boat from Valdez, disconnected from Alaska roads, and home to one of the five salmon hatcheries in Prince William Sound. For more than 30 years, Alyeska has also used it as a strategic staging station for critical oil spill response equipment to protect the region’s ecosystem and economy in an emergency.
More than 5,000 feet of containment and protection boom is housed in nine conexes there, though the structures showed their age after spending decades in remote coastal Alaska weather. In 2025, after years of planning, Alyeska’s Ship Escort Response Vessel System, or SERVS, staff and key Trans Alaska Pipeline System, or TAPS, contractors removed and replaced the old conexes.
In August, a team departed Valdez along with heavy equipment transported by a contractor on a 70-foot landing craft. Once onsite, they carefully unloaded existing spill response equipment and protected it from the elements. They removed old conexes, ferrying them one- by-one to the largest tug in the SERVS fleet, the Ross Chouest. Once all nine were aboard, the Ross Chouest headed back to Valdez.
Teams swapped the retired containers with nine newly built and outfitted units. The tug returned to Main Bay, and the replacement process resumed. Crews delivered each new conex to the beach via the landing craft and then placed each precisely where the previous units stood.
Despite several logistical challenges, teams completed the project on time with zero injuries, zero equipment damage, and zero mechanical breakdowns, a testament to the professionalism and coordination of all involved.