Large spill occurs at Milne Point

A large spill occurred the week of Jan. 12 on the North Slope.

The spill of 24,400 gallons, of which the state estimates 90 percent to be crude, happened at the Milne Point field operated by BP and was the sixth largest spill on the North Slope. Milne Point is a medium-sized North Slope field located northwest of the huge Prudhoe Bay field.

So far, there is no evidence that the oil from the Milne Point spill has contaminated the tundra. The spill resulted from a tank overflow at a gravel pad when an electronic component that monitors flow failed.

BP spokesman Steve Rinehart said an alarm sounded and workers were able to cut the flow of the oil within about 20 minutes. An investigation will be held to look into why the device failed.

“We take any incident like this seriously,” Rinehart said.

In the meantime, clean up operations are under way.

About 15 people are working on the cleanup and a state Department of Environmental Conservation employee is monitoring it, said Ed Meggert, the department’s on-scene spill response coordinator.

The cleanup crew is removing gravel from the pad and testing to see how deep the oil has penetrated the pad.

The spill is the biggest on the slope since BP’s record 201,000-gallon oil spill at Prudhoe Bay in 2006, which resulted in congressional hearings and criminal prosecution of BP. That spill, caused by corroded pipes, did contaminate the tundra and required an expensive cleanup.

—The Associated Press