Cruise ship industry to station oil spill barges around Southeast

First of new barges, tugs, to be in place by May; five to be stationed in Gustavus, Skagway, Yakutat, Ketchikan, Juneau

by The Associated Press

The cruise ship industry will be providing some help for oil spill cleanup around Southeast Alaska next year. John Hansen, president of the North West Cruise Ship Association, said five barges loaded with oil spill response equipment will be built and tied up at five different sites around the Panhandle by the end of the year 2000.

The cruise line association said it plans to spend some $1.3 million to design and build the barges.

The barges will be available for spills from any ship sailing in Southeast Alaska waters, Hansen said.

“We’re in the final stages of design of the barges at this moment,” he said. “We are planning to have one or two in place by May.

“One hopes this is a piece of equipment we will never need.”

The barges will be stationed at Gustavus, Skagway, Yakutat, Ketchikan and Juneau, with the same number of tug boats assigned to them.

The tugs will work as “vessels of opportunity,” said David Owings, general manager of SEAPRO. They will perform other work, but will immediately hook up to the barges and respond if a spill occurs, he said. SEAPRO is a nonprofit cooperative group charged with oil spill response in Southeast.

With nearly 32,000 feet of recovery booms, the ability to store 130,000 42-gallon barrels of oil and close to 240 trained oil-response people around Southeast, SEAPRO has the ability to respond to oil spills now, he told the Juneau Empire.

The barges, however, likely would be able to respond more quickly if a spill occurs, and oil spills tend to get exponentially worse the longer it takes for teams to get on scene, Owings said.

“We’ve been working on this seriously since March,” he said. “The barges are an improvement in that they’re made to rapidly deploy. I view this like a fire department — fast response.”

Capt. Ed Page, chief of marine safety for the Coast Guard’s 17th District, said prevention is the best way to deal will the threat of an oil spill. But the barges will come in handy if prevention doesn’t work, Page said.