Unocal receives national award from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Unocal Alaska has received the Director's Corporate Wildlife Stewardship Award from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for “outstanding efforts toward protecting the invaluable wildlife resources of the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge.”

Steve Williams, director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, said in a letter to Chuck Pierce, vice president, Unocal Alaska, that Unocal, which became unit operator of the Swanson River oil field in 1992, “has diligently worked to combat the deterioration if its aging facilities.” Swanson is on the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge, and “is one of the oldest and largest fields in operation on a National Wildlife Refuge,” Williams said.

Unocal began a program in 1995 of replacing old metal pipelines with heavy duty metal, fiberglass and sometimes plastic piping and sleeves, he said. And in the past two years the company “has voluntarily removed 6,780 tons of scrap, steel, used pipe and cement from the field.” The removal effort included the disassembly and removal of an old tool house, of six 750-barrel-gauge tanks from tank setting sites and of “numerous pieces of outdated equipment.”

Rowan Gould, regional director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for Alaska, presented the award Aug. 2 in Ninilchik at a celebration of the centennial of the National Wildlife Refuge System. Unocal Alaska spokeswoman Roxanne Sinz accepted the award on behalf of the company.