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ExxonMobil in Alaska: Exxon Valdez: The aftermath Spill legacy includes new safeguards and enhanced response capabilities
Steve Sutherlin For Petroleum News
On March 24, 1989, the tanker Exxon Valdez ran aground in Prince William Sound in Alaska. Loaded for a five-day run to Long Beach, Calif., the 987-foot ship held 1,264,164 barrels of North Slope crude. The ship’s hull was ruptured, spilling 257,000 barrels of its cargo onto the sea.
The Valdez, in service for three years, was the newest, best-equipped ship in Exxon’s fleet. Its captain, Joseph Hazelwood, was a 19-year Exxon Shipping veteran.
On March 25, Exxon took responsibility for the spill.
Exxon launched a cleanup, and voluntarily compensated Alaskans and businesses that claimed direct damages. According to Exxon, it spent more than $3.8 billion on compensation, cleanup efforts and settlements and fines.
The cleanup was declared complete by the State of Alaska and the U.S. Coast Guard in 1992. Litigation continued until June 2008, when the U.S. Supreme Court set maximum punitive damages of $508 million in the Exxon Valdez case.
“The Valdez oil spill was a tragic accident and one which the corporation deeply regrets,” ExxonMobil Chairman and CEO Rex W. Tillerson said in a statement following the ruling. “We know this has been a very difficult time for everyone involved. We have worked hard over many years to address the impacts of the spill and to prevent such accidents from happening in our company again.
“In the aftermath of the Valdez accident, we redoubled our long-time commitment to safeguard the environment, our employees and the communities in which we operate,” Tillerson said.
“We have worked hard over many years to address the impacts of the spill and to prevent such accidents from recurring,” Exxon said on its website. “Our current maritime performance reflects this commitment.”
The scope of the spill was inventoried in a November 1994 report — the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Restoration Plan. The report was issued by the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council, which was formed to oversee restoration of the injured ecosystem funded by a $900 million civil settlement.
“That spring the oil moved along the coastline of Alaska, contaminating portions of the shoreline of Prince William Sound, the Kenai Peninsula, lower Cook Inlet, the Kodiak Archipelago, and the Alaska Peninsula,” the report said, “Oiled areas include a National Forest, four National Wildlife Refuges, three National Parks, five State Parks, four State Critical Habitat Areas, and a State Game Sanctuary.
“Oil eventually reached shorelines nearly 600 miles southwest from Bligh Reef where the spill occurred.”
New precautions in place The aftermath of the Exxon Valdez oil spill was not all negative. The spill altered oil transport activities in Prince William Sound forever, holding the industry to a higher bar.
The Exxon Valdez spill triggered new federal and state legislation which heightened regulatory oversight of spill prevention and response in Valdez, Prince William Sound, and all of Alaska, including inland waterways.
Single-hull tankers have become a relic in the Valdez trade, as an outcome of the 1989 spill.
The spill led to the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 — federal legislation mandating a phase-in of double-hulled tankers, to replace single-hulled vessels such as the Exxon Valdez.
SERVS Valdez harbor boasts the headquarters of the Ship Escort/Response Vessel System, an organization formed shortly after the Exxon Valdez spill. SERVS, a unit of Alyeska Pipeline Service Co., provides spill response and tug escorts for oil tankers hauling Alaska North Slope crude oil out of Prince William Sound. SERVS also provides oil spill response services for the oil terminal and for the shippers that operate the tankers. The SERVS control room also maintains contact with vessels in Prince William Sound, employing the same types of automatic vessel identification system and ice radar as the Coast Guard to monitor tankers on the water.
Each tanker has a two tug escort, with one tug tethered to the tanker’s stern — poised to drag the tanker out of harm’s way. The tug stays with the tanker all the way out to Hinchinbrook Entrance. On the tanker’s bridge, a professional pilot assists the tanker crew to navigate the route between Valdez and Bligh Reef.
In October 2010, the two-tug system in Prince William Sound was officially extended. The Coast Guard Authorization Act of 2010 (H.R. 3619) mandates that two tugboats must continue escorting oil-laden tankers through Prince William Sound, even if the ships have double hulls. Dual escorts previously were required only for single-hull tankers.
The oil industry for years has escorted laden tankers through the sound with two tugs, which can tow or nudge the ships should they lose power or otherwise get into trouble. If there was a question about whether dual tugs will continue after the tanker fleet became 100 percent double hulled, H.R. 3619 answered it.
The SERVS escort tugs carry skimmers and boom, to serve as the first line of response in the event of a spill.
Fishing vessels played a major response role in the spill. Many in 1989 felt the fishing fleet could have done more, and fishermen were frustrated that they were not allowed to do more, especially in the early hours of the spill.
Fishing fleet preparedness Today, SERVS provides a framework for the fishing fleet to maintain preparedness, and to be included as a primary part of any spill response effort.
State and federal authorities now require Alyeska to maintain a large fleet of fishing vessels to help clean up oil spills. Crews take part in periodic training on tasks like deploying boom and skimming oil.
In 1989, spill response consisted of just a barge, three skimmers and 2.5 miles of boom. On-water storage was 5,000 barrels.
In 2010, the program encompassed roughly 350 boats from Cordova, the primary fishing port in Prince William Sound, along with the ports of Valdez, Whittier, Seward, Homer and Kodiak. More than 200 of the vessels are based in Prince William Sound. SERVS fishing vessel training is held twice a year.
SERVS in 2010 maintained a 50-mile supply of various types of boom, 108 skimmers providing a total of 59,000 barrels per hour of oil recovery capacity and nine oil recovery barges which together provide 900,000 barrels of on-water storage capacity.
SERVS tugs and response barges provide mobile platforms for deploying equipment to a response site.
The many elements of spill response are united under the incident command system — a system of standard crisis response organizational protocols and procedures for organizations potentially involved in Prince William Sound oil spill response, including shippers, the Coast Guard and the state.
The organizations participate in coordinated major annual oil spill drills involving hundreds of people.
SERVS also periodically tests the deployment of equipment at remote sites such as salmon hatcheries. SERVS stages equipment at five salmon hatcheries and five remotely located response sites in Prince William Sound. SERVS also has recognized sites with high environmental sensitivity which are covered by specialized oil spill response plans.
Ice Radar In its report on the 1989 oil spill, the National Transportation Safety Board recommended installing a radar system near Bligh Reef to spot icebergs and monitor vessel traffic. A factor in the spill was that the Valdez deviated from the standard shipping lanes to avoid ice that other vessels had reported.
“After the spill, evidence continued to mount about the threat posed by icebergs,” the Prince William Sound Regional Citizens’ Advisory Council told Petroleum News. “An empty tanker struck an iceberg in the Sound in 1994 and suffered over $1 million in damage. And a technical study in the mid-1990s identified icebergs as one of the major remaining threats to tankers in the Sound.”
The council, the Coast Guard, Alyeska and other stakeholders finally succeeded in installing ice radar in 2002 on Reef Island, which overlooks Bligh Reef, the navigational hazard the tanker Exxon Valdez hit in 1989. The radar scans the waters from Reef Island west to Columbia Bay, where the Columbia Glacier calves icebergs that can drift into shipping lanes. The ice radar feeds a display to the Valdez operations base for SERVS.
The U.S. Coast Guard has added staff to augment the increased radar coverage in the sound.
In 1989 a radar system scanned Port Valdez, the Valdez Narrows and the Valdez Arm of Prince William Sound, as far as Rocky Point. Tracking vessels outside of radar coverage required ship-to-shore radio communications and plotting.
Now the Coast Guard maintains radio contact with tankers and will alert a tanker crew if the tanker starts to stray off course. The Coast Guard also imposed a system of marine speed limits in the sound.
Watchdog: Prince William Sound Citizens Advisory Council The Prince William Sound Citizens’ Advisory Council is a congressionally sanctioned nonprofit, formed after the Exxon Valdez oil spill. It keeps watch over the Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. oil terminal and tanker operations at Valdez and in Prince William Sound.
The council reviews oil spill preparedness plans and conducts scientific and technical studies.
The industry, under a 1990 contract with Alyeska, provides the bulk of the council’s annual budget of more than $3 million, supporting a staff of 18 in Valdez and Anchorage. The council has advocated safeguards such as continued tug escorts for tankers and tighter standards for air and water pollution around the terminal. The council will remain in force as long as oil flows through the trans-Alaska oil pipeline.
The council has 19 member organizations including local governments, commercial fishing, environmental groups, Natives, and recreation and tourism groups from across a region stretching from Prince William Sound to Cook Inlet to Kodiak Island.
By law, the council is subject to periodic Coast Guard re-certification.
The council is made up of the communities of Chenega Bay, Cordova, Homer, Kodiak, Port Graham, Seldovia, Seward, Tatitlek, Valdez and Whittier; the Kenai Peninsula and Kodiak Island boroughs; the Oil Spill Region Environmental Coalition; Chugach Alaska Corp.; the Alaska State Chamber of Commerce; Cordova District Fishermen United; the Kodiak Village Mayors Association; Prince William Sound Aquaculture Corp.; and the Alaska Wilderness Recreation and Tourism Association.
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