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Tugboat hits Bligh Reef Coast Guard probes collision with infamous rock; Alaska oil tankers delayed Wesley Loy For Petroleum News
A tugboat used to help manage oil tankers at Valdez ran aground two days before Christmas, spilling diesel fuel into Prince William Sound and mildly disrupting Alaska crude shipments.
The mishap has generated huge publicity due in large part to where it occurred — at Bligh Reef, the same water hazard the tanker Exxon Valdez hit in 1989, causing a catastrophic spill of some 11 million gallons of crude oil.
The crew of the tugboat Pathfinder notified the U.S. Coast Guard’s vessel traffic center in Valdez at 6:15 p.m. Dec. 23 that it had struck the reef, which is well-marked on navigational charts.
The tug was not escorting a tanker at the time and, in fact, is not among the tugs used for that purpose.
Rather, the Pathfinder had been out in the Sound scouting for icebergs that often break off Columbia Glacier and drift into the shipping lanes, posing a danger to tankers. The tug had finished the scouting run and was heading back to port in Valdez when it grounded, the Coast Guard said.
The Pathfinder didn’t sink or strand on the reef. It cleared the rocks and proceeded to deeper waters, anchoring near Busby Island, where the crew and spill responders deployed boom around the vessel.
The tug sustained severe damage, including ruptured fuel tanks.
The incident, and the ensuing spill response, briefly delayed the departure of two oil tankers from the Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. oil terminal at Valdez.
Crowley Maritime Corp., the Jacksonville, Fla., company that operates a fleet of harbor and escort tugs for Alyeska, relieved the captain and second mate of duty pending further investigation.
“All of us at Crowley are deeply disappointed and saddened that this grounding occurred,” Rockwell Smith, a Crowley executive, said in a Dec. 25 press release. “We regret that we’ve disrupted service to Alyeska and that fuel has been released into the water. We will get to the bottom of this and take all necessary corrective actions.”
‘Not acceptable’ Noting the Pathfinder incident came on the heels of three recent spills at the Prudhoe Bay oil field, Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell said he called executives at Alyeska and BP, which runs Prudhoe, to express concern.
“Frankly, when I saw so many spills in such a short time I was indignant that these spills would occur,” said Parnell, in a statement issued Dec. 24. “The spills harm both Alaska’s environment and Alaska’s reputation for responsible resource development. I let the companies know this was not acceptable.”
The governor said he asked the attorney general and his natural resources and environmental conservation commissioners to review the spills and make recommendations early this year on spill prevention and enforcement.
The Prince William Sound Regional Citizens’ Advisory Council, a congressionally sanctioned watchdog organization for the oil terminal and tanker operations at Valdez, also was critical of the tugboat incident.
“Like most Alaskans, we … are baffled as to how the Pathfinder managed to hit perhaps the most famous navigational hazard in the world — Bligh Reef — in conditions of relatively mild weather,” the council’s president, Steve Lewis, said in a Dec. 24 press release. “While many of the facts surrounding this grounding are not yet available, it seems at first blush to raise serious questions about the safety of oil industry operations in the Sound, and about how well the painful lessons of the Exxon Valdez spill of 1989 have been learned by today’s mariners.”
Lewis said the grounding raised several questions, such as why the tug crew did not “realize their peril” either by sight or from radar, and why the Coast Guard’s vessel traffic center didn’t warn the crew.
Damage and cleanup The disabled Pathfinder was towed slowly back to port over a distance of 20 miles, arriving early on the morning of Dec. 27.
The Coast Guard reported light diesel sheens on the surface of Prince William Sound, but investigators as well as the Valdez watchdog group agreed the spilled fuel likely caused minimal environmental damage.
The state Department of Environmental Conservation reported the tug had 123,000 gallons of diesel aboard at the time of the wreck. Spill responders lightered some fuel off the anchored tug, and they skimmed some from the surface of the Sound. Crowley reported an independent testing company, Caleb Brett, gauged 94,226 gallons of diesel in the tug once moored in Valdez.
Contact with the reef did major damage to the hull, breaching three fuel tanks and tearing away a section of the keel, Coast Guard and state officials said. The tug also sustained damage to its keel cooler, a system of hull-mounted pipes through which engine coolant is pumped.
The extensive damage seriously clouds the tug’s future, said Jim Butler, an Alaska spokesman for Crowley. The 136-foot tug is relatively old, built in 1970, Coast Guard records show.
Loss of the Pathfinder likely won’t significantly disrupt oil tanker operations at the Valdez terminal, for a couple of reasons.
First, the Pathfinder mainly did jobs such as ice scouting or helping tankers berth and depart. Crowley has newer and far more powerful tugs stationed at Valdez for actually escorting oil-laden tankers through the Sound.
Second, Crowley is bringing up a replacement tug, the Guardian, from Seattle, Butler said.
All the Crowley tugs are part of Alyeska’s Ship Escort/Response Vessel System, or SERVS, established soon after Exxon Valdez to provide improved tanker escort and spill response.
The investigation The Pathfinder’s six-man crew was tested for alcohol with negative results, the Coast Guard said.
Investigators were taking statements from crewmen to try to determine why it ran aground.
The Coast Guard also was reviewing the performance of its Valdez vessel traffic center, which monitors shipping in the area. “At this time, there is no indication of negligence,” Coast Guard Petty Officer David Mosley told Petroleum News on Dec. 29.
That the vessel traffic center didn’t call the Pathfinder and warn it away from Bligh Reef isn’t surprising, as the nature of a tug’s work often takes it near hazards, he said.
“That’s their job,” Mosley said. “We’re not going to second-guess what a captain’s choices are.”
Another issue the Prince William Sound RCAC raised was the status of the Sound’s iceberg detection radar. The group said the radar, mounted on an island overlooking submerged Bligh Reef, went offline late last summer after a Coast Guard systems upgrade.
RCAC spokesman Stan Jones agreed with Coast Guard officials who say scouting voyages such as the Pathfinder’s often are necessary even when the ice radar is working.
But the radar needs to be restored because it can “detect icebergs in weather too dark or too foggy to permit reliable visual detection by human observers,” the RCAC said.
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