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Fishing boats fall short for training Alyeska Pipeline reports ‘non-readiness’ in its spill response fleet, boosts pay; only 169 of 189 vessels available on Jan. 26 Wesley Loy For Petroleum News
Alyeska Pipeline Service Co., commercial fishermen, state oil industry regulators and an industry watchdog group are trying to patch holes in a program that trains hundreds of fishing vessel crews to respond to oil spills in Alaska’s Prince William Sound.
On Feb. 2, Alyeska sent the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation a “notice of non-readiness” under its mandatory oil spill prevention and cleanup plan. Alyeska said it was sending the notice “due to a deficiency in available fishing vessels to meet the response requirements detailed in the plans.”
Alyeska said it is supposed to be able to rally 189 vessels to carry out specific response operations within a certain timeframe, but only 169 vessels were ready in a Jan. 26 availability check.
Alyeska is an oil company consortium that runs the trans-Alaska oil pipeline and tanker terminal at Valdez.
The non-readiness notice revealed simmering tensions over the fishing vessel response program.
Watchdog cites problems The Valdez-based oil industry watchdog group, Prince William Sound Regional Citizens’ Advisory Council, called the situation “a long-developing crisis” in a program that’s crucial for effective oil spill response. The group noted that fishing vessels provided most of the equipment and manpower for protecting sensitive areas and cleaning up oil after the disastrous Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989.
The council said that, by its own calculation, the deficiency in the January availability check actually could have been as many as 33 vessels, not 20 as Alyeska reported.
“The January shortfall is only the latest sign of trouble in the program,” the council said in a March 12 press release. “The council has been warning Alyeska and its regulators of problems since 2005, when fishing vessel captains at a council-sponsored meeting complained of declining participation in the program and warned that, without changes, it could atrophy to the point of being ineffective for oil-spill response.
“The captains said the biggest problems in the program were inadequate compensation, exclusion from the decision-making process, and lack of respect.”
Pay raise Alyeska contracts with two tiers of fishing vessels for oil spill response.
According to the citizens’ council, which has studied Alyeska’s complex oil spill contingency plan, a 50-vessel Tier I fleet is supposed to be ready to leave port within six hours, while a 225-vessel Tier II fleet must be ready to depart within 24 hours.
Alyeska is required to have 350 vessel crews trained, but the company fell far short of that level in 2009, the council contends.
The fishing vessels include salmon seiners, gillnetters and other types of boats that normally work in Alaska’s huge commercial fishing industry. The boats under Alyeska contract come not only from ports such as Cordova, Valdez and Whittier in Prince William Sound, but also from ports farther away such as Homer.
Vessel crews go through annual training exercises, and boat owners typically are paid $1,000 to $2,000 per day of training and drills depending on the size of the boat, said Alyeska spokeswoman Michelle Egan. Alyeska also reimburses fishermen for fuel, and provides insurance during exercises.
The fishing boats are trained to deploy boom, skim oil off the surface of the water and other tasks in the event of a spill.
To partly address the fishermen’s concerns, Alyeska has implemented a 10 percent pay increase across the fleet, Egan said.
Alyeska has agreed to work with the citizens’ council to further address the issues.
Maintaining a ready fishing fleet is “an ongoing challenge,” Egan said. “The players change. Vessels change hands. But I think we’re on the way to getting on top of it. The 10 percent across-the-board increase seems to have helped.”
One fisherman’s view Homer fisherman John Velsko’s 36-foot salmon and halibut boat, the Wahoo, is part of Alyeska’s Tier II fleet.
The next three-day training session begins April 1, and Velsko said it will be interesting to see how many boats show up.
The 10 percent pay increase hasn’t generated much enthusiasm, he said.
The character of Alyeska’s fishing vessel program seems to have changed in recent years, said Velsko, who is on the board of the citizens’ council. For example, he said, fishermen haven’t had much input when training was taking place.
“Recently, there’s been an attitude from Alyeska of take it or leave it,” Velsko said.
The most worrisome thing, he said, is that while older fishermen seem willing to stay involved with the program, which involves considerable expense and hassle, younger fishermen don’t seem as interested.
It’s been suggested that, in the event of a spill, fishermen would come out in droves to help with the cleanup, Velsko said.
“But is that the way you want to run a multimillion-dollar oil spill response plan? I don’t think so,” he said.
The idea of the Alyeska program is to train vessel crews in advance, and not waste crucial hours on training after a spill occurs, Velsko said.
What’s needed now is better communication, and it’s positive that Alyeska is going to work with the citizens’ council on compensation and morale issues, he said.
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