Council questions oil spill cleanup plan

The Prince William Sound Regional Citizens’ Advisory Council is questioning the adequacy of a proposed spill prevention and cleanup plan for Alaska oil tanker operators.

The Valdez-based council is a congressionally mandated nonprofit organization that monitors the oil industry in Prince William Sound.

It is citing a number of deficiencies in the proposed Prince William Sound tanker oil discharge prevention and contingency plan, or C-plan.

The C-plan is reviewed and updated every five years, and the current plan expires Nov. 1. Regulators with the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation have been reviewing the tanker operators’ draft C-plan update for several months, and the process is in its final stretch.

The council says the plan still needs work, that it lacks detail and doesn’t clearly demonstrate the industry’s ability to fully respond to a spill as state regulations require.

The C-plan covers shippers transporting Alaska North Slope crude oil through Prince William Sound.

These include Alaska Tanker Co., which carries crude for BP; Polar Tankers, the shipping arm for ConocoPhillips; SeaRiver Maritime, an ExxonMobil subsidiary; and Tesoro, a refiner.

The shippers have been working through a series of public comment periods to craft their proposed new C-plan. The council acknowledges the shippers have satisfied some of its concerns, but not all.

A C-plan is a detailed document for responding to an oil spill. It lays out a chain of command and how companies would deploy people and equipment for a spill response.

A different C-plan covers the Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. oil terminal at Valdez. That C-plan expires in May 2013.

Despite months of work and revisions, the proposed tanker C-plan still has many deficiencies, the citizens’ council says.

The council questions whether an adequate number of boats and trained people are available to respond to a spill, and whether the vessels are right for the job.

The tanker operators have hundreds of commercial fishing boats on contract and ready to respond to help with a cleanup. The council in August told the DEC that the 2007 C-plan showed more than 350 boats in the tanker response system, but that the proposed 2012 plan committed to only 275 boats.

“This shortfall has become apparent during recent drills,” the council wrote.

The council also questions the availability of enough crew and boom to meet oil containment and recovery requirements in open water. It says additional information is needed to show that enough empty tankers and barges would be available to hold the blend of oil and water collected from a spill.

The council also says the proposed C-plan dedicates inadequate resources for the protection of “sensitive areas.”

—Wesley loy