Alaska villages eye oil spill response

Villagers worry about the need for quick, local response should increased Arctic vessel traffic result in an offshore oil spill

Alan Bailey

Petroleum News

As Arctic vessel traffic increases in response to the melting of sea ice, rural villages, especially in the region of the Bering Strait, are taking an interest in how to respond should a marine accident cause an offshore oil spill. The Bering Strait is a relatively narrow choke point for ships traversing Arctic shipping routes such as Russia’s Northern Sea Route. Coastal villagers, living in communities many miles from the nearest logistical support infrastructure, worry about the need to take immediate action in response to a spill, rather than waiting for oil spill response organizations to arrive on the scene.

The Wildlife Conservation Society has organized a two-day workshop on Nov. 7 and 8 in Fairbanks to determine what response tools people living in the Bering Strait region can safely and effectively deploy.

“With an increasing potential for oil spills, coastal communities of the Bering and Anadyr straits are seeking ways to protect their health and safety, as well as their long-term cultural practices and food security. This includes developing their capacity to act as first responders in the event of an accident,” the Wildlife Conservation Society says in its background statement for the workshop.

The Alaska Dispatch has reported that a group of Northwest Alaska villages have formed an organization called the Bering Sea Alliance, to engage villagers in any developments in the Bering Sea region, with the training of villagers in oil spill response being one of the organization’s priorities.

“We want to leave nothing to chance as it related to the resources our villages depend on,” said Art Ivanoff, chief executive of the alliance, according to the Alaska Dispatch report. “It’s marine life that sustains our villages and we’re trying to find a way to have the tools in the toolbox to respond to an incident if one were to occur.”

Shell, the company at the forefront of oil exploration in the Chukchi Sea, to the north of the Bering Sea, has confirmed to Petroleum News that it is funding a three-day hazardous materials training workshop for the Bering Sea Alliance, to be held in the village of Wales, a village on the eastern coast of the Bering Strait.

The village spill response issue became one of the topics discussed during an Arctic oil spill response workshop organized by Commonwealth North in August.

During that workshop a representative from the Wildlife Conservation Society made the case for community involvement in oil spill response efforts, while an official from Alaska Clean Seas, a major Alaska oil spill response cooperative, expressed caution about issues such as the need for adequate maintenance of spill response equipment, the need for personnel physicals for responders and legal liability during a response operation. Alaska Clean Seas trains and equips North Slope villagers to participate in its North Slope spill response team.