Valdez terminal watchdog adds new member

Citing increased complacency, village corporation for Port Graham joins Prince William Sound Regional Citizens’ Advisory Council

Wesley Loy

For Petroleum News

A Valdez-based oil industry watchdog group has expanded the ranks of its member organizations.

The Prince William Sound Regional Citizens’ Advisory Council has added Port Graham Corp. as its 19th member.

The council is a congressionally sanctioned nonprofit, formed after the Exxon Valdez disaster of 1989, that keeps watch over the Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. oil terminal and tanker operations at Valdez and in Prince William Sound.

Its members include a mix of local governments plus commercial fishing, environmental, Native, and recreation and tourism groups from across a region stretching from the Sound to Cook Inlet to Kodiak Island.

Port Graham Corp. is one of the many Alaska Native corporations formed under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971. With headquarters in Anchorage, the corporation represents the village of Port Graham, located about 30 miles southwest of Homer.

“In its Oct. 22, 2009, resolution requesting membership in the council, the corporation cited the impacts of the Exxon Valdez oil spill on its extensive coastal landholdings in Kenai Fjords National Park, as well as on lands and subsistence beaches near the village of Port Graham,” said a Feb. 9 press release from the council.

The corporation is developing its lands for tourism at Aialik Bay in the Kenai Fjords.

Diane Selanoff, the corporation’s vice chairman, will hold a seat on the council’s board of directors. Raised in Port Graham, Selanoff now lives in Valdez and works for TCC, an oil spill cleanup services contractor for Alyeska, the council press release said.

“Our goal is to ensure the proper degree of regulatory oversight is maintained in accordance with the Oil Pollution Act of 1990,” Selanoff said. “It seems that recently we have all become more complacent and as descendents of people who by oral tradition have been here since the Pleistocene period we are concerned and want to be part of the solution. We can’t let human nature slip and result in another catastrophe.”

Council still seeking new leader

The oil industry provides most of the funding for the council, which has an annual budget of more than $3 million and a staff of 18 in Valdez and Anchorage.

Two recent events have drawn the council’s scrutiny: the wreck of an oil industry tugboat on infamous Bligh Reef two days before Christmas, causing a significant diesel spill; and a Jan. 17 incident in which a tanker carrying oil for ExxonMobil needed an emergency tow from escort tugs after the ship experienced a power loss.

Port Graham is the council’s first new member organization since 1992.

The council’s other members are the communities of Chenega Bay, Cordova, Homer, Kodiak, 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.

The council has been searching for a new executive director since John Devens resigned in May 2009. Devens was mayor of Valdez at the time of the Exxon Valdez oil spill.