Oil Spill Response

New guidelines for using dispersants proposed

By STEVE ROTHCHILD
Council Administrative Deputy Director

The Alaska Regional Response Team has proposed new guidelines for how chemical dispersants are approved for use in Alaska’s waters.

This team is an advisory board of resource trustee agencies that provides federal, state, and local governmental agencies with the means to participate in pollution incident response.

The announcement of these new proposed guidelines came in October, and the team held a series of public meetings to discuss the new approval procedures in November in five Southcentral Alaska communities. Council representatives attended three of the five meetings in Kodiak, Anchorage and Valdez. The other two meetings were held out of the council’s geographic area.

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Workshop helps citizens understand incident command system

Tim Robertson, council contractor, leads a discussion during the Seward workshop on how contingency plans relate to the Incident Command System. Photo by Amanda Johnson.
Tim Robertson, council contractor, leads a discussion during the Seward workshop on how contingency plans relate to the Incident Command System.

This fall, the council sponsored a series of community workshops to teach citizens how an oil spill response is organized and managed.

The workshops in Homer, Whittier and Seward examined the power and decision making structure used during an emergency, and the role of federal, state, and local responders, and the role of the communities in the system. The goal was to help communities understand how to be more effective in representing themselves during an incident and understand more about how a spill would be handled.

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Oil spill response in Sound depends on trained fishing vessel crews

In Prince William Sound, fishing vessel crews are trained to help clean up oil spills. These trained responders are familiar with local waters, and can respond quickly to a spill. Alyeska’s Ship Escort Response Vessel System, or SERVS, oversees the program. SERVS contracts vessels throughout Prince William Sound and downstream areas such as Kodiak, Seward, … Read more

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