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Prince William Sound hosts spill drill
Agency and industry players recently mounted a major oil spill cleanup exercise in Prince William Sound.
The 48-hour drill included a new twist — the transition of the incident command post during the drill from one city to another.
The exercise involved a simulated, worst-case discharge from a tanker in the sound, the U.S. Coast Guard said in an Oct. 10 press release.
The scenario began on the evening of Oct. 7 with the command post located in Valdez. It continued uninterrupted for 36 hours, then responders shifted the command post to Anchorage on the morning of Oct. 9.
“Smoothly shifting response personnel to an alternate incident command post is vital to providing an aggressive response in a worst-case scenario,” said Capt. Paul Mehler, Coast Guard Sector Anchorage commander and federal on-scene coordinator for Western Alaska. “An exercise of this scope gives the Coast Guard, our state partners and industry a chance to enhance and evaluate their response plans in a realistic setting.”
Huge team involved More than 500 Coast Guard, state and industry people took part in the exercise, the Coast Guard said.
Aside from the Coast Guard, other participants included the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation; Alyeska Pipeline Service Co., which operates the trans-Alaska oil pipeline and the tanker terminal in Valdez; and Polar Tankers Inc., which hauls Alaska North Slope crude oil for ConocoPhillips.
The oil industry maintains a huge stable of equipment and trained people to respond to spills in Prince William Sound. The response apparatus includes hundreds of commercial fishing boats on contract to assist if called.
“Large-scale exercises require months to coordinate and a collaborative effort amongst the maritime response community,” said Cmdr. Benjamin Hawkins, Coast Guard Marine Safety Unit Valdez commanding officer and federal on-scene coordinator for Prince William Sound. “This drill was especially unique as it tested our ability to support 24-hour response operations and incorporated five different Coast Guard units, including support personnel from the Sector Field Office and Electronics Support Detachment in Valdez.”
Striving for realism John Kotula, a DEC official in Valdez, told Petroleum News the exercise aimed for realism.
Normally, such drills proceed for 12 hours then break, he said. This one ran continuously.
It involved deploying two ocean-going barges equipped with large skimmers for recovering oil. Also, fishing boats with protective boom were assigned to sensitive areas around the sound.
Different tanker companies participate in the yearly drills on a rotating basis, Kotula said.
This time, numerous Polar Tankers people were brought up for the action, he said.
Shifting the command post mid-drill had to do with the fact that Anchorage has lots more housing available, Kotula said. That was a lesson learned during the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, which strained the small town of Valdez.
Kotula declined to grade the exercise, saying input from a lot of people still needed to be compiled for a wrap-up report.
—Wesley Loy
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