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Alyeska to remove sludge from bottom of tanks to ease fire danger RCAC says sludge buildup shows neglect of problems; company cites industry practice of waiting until accumulation justifies disposal costs by The Associated Press
housands of barrels of crude oil sludge will be moved from four huge storage tanks at the Valdez tanker terminal. The project is meant to ease fears that the sludge would prevent a firefighting system on the floor of the tanks from working, regulators say.
The terminal handles about 1 million barrels of crude oil a day, nearly all of Alaska’s production. That makes it one of the nation’s largest oil ports.
Officials have said the risk of fire is slight. But the Valdez port has been plagued in recent months with problems stemming from its fire system, including overdue maintenance, missing fire hydrants, frozen water pipes and clogged pipes inside the foam-suppression system.
These have raised concerns about whether the Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. could handle a fire at its Valdez terminal. A fire there could become an environmental catastrophe and would cripple Alaska oil production.
Sludge accumulated over the years The sludge problem has accumulated over 22 years of running North Slope oil through Valdez. The material is a thick mixture of sand, wax and congealed crude. It settles out of the crude oil sitting in the tanks.
Regulators said that as Alyeska cleaned the tanks over the years, workers shifted the sludge to four of the tanks where it sits now anywhere from 4-feet to 6-feet deep. The fire-suppression pipes stand 2 feet above the tank floor.
Alyeska managers knew the sludge probably was lying over the fire pipes but thought the water and foam suppressant could percolate up through the sludge and douse a fire.
Alyeska officials knew the sludge would become a problem eventually, said Tracy Green, an Alyeska spokeswoman. At some point, so much sludge accumulates that it limits the amount of oil that can be stored. It also becomes a fire hazard.
Standard industry practice is to leave sludge in the tanks until enough builds up to justify disposal costs, Green said.
Workers doing some routine tank cleaning last summer discovered that fire-suppression pipes in one tank were clogged with hardened sludge. The clogged pipes eventually were reported in November, after an Alyeska engineer heard about them during a conversation with a contract worker.
JPO orders sludge removal Alyeska notified regulators that several more tanks could have the same problem. Alyeska said last month it may clear the sludge to ensure the fire pipes are clean. The Joint Pipeline Office made it official in an order on Dec. 2.
Alyeska has not yet decided what to do with the sludge.
The Prince William Sound Regional Citizens’ Advisory Council, a citizens group that monitors oil shipping and operations in the Sound, supports cleaning the tanks, said Joe Bridgman, an RCAC employee overseeing the tanks.
“The sludge doesn’t mean the place is about to burn,” Bridgman told the Anchorage Daily News. “But this is a good example of Alyeska’s tendency to neglect problems.”
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