|
A decade of citizens watching over Prince William Sound Representatives from local government and interest groups work together to make oil transportation safer Kevin Hartwell PNA Contributing Writer
On March 23, 1989, just a few hours before the Exxon Valdez struck Bligh Reef, Riki Ott of Cordova said: “It’s not a matter of if we have a spill, it’s a matter of when we have the spill.” Ott was speaking to an ad hoc committee meeting in Valdez exploring community involvement in oil spill prevention.
Up until the oil spill, citizen oversight of the Valdez Marine Terminal and oil tanker operations in Prince William Sound was rejected by the oil industry. Today, it is a fact of life, mandated by the Oil Pollution Act of 1990. The Prince William Sound Regional Citizens’ Advisory Council is made up of local government representatives from Prince William Sound and Kodiak area, as well as interest groups that include commercial fishing, aquaculture, tourism, recreation, Alaska Native and environmental groups.
“RCAC was formed to have an oversight with the idea that citizens would have some involvement with the movement of oil,” said Stan Stephens of the Alaska Wilderness Recreation and Tourism Association and current RCAC president. Stephens is a firm believer that citizens’ groups are a wave of the future because the normal system of government checks and balances to protect citizens has been compromised by heavy lobbying and big business’ ability to influence decision makers. “I think it’s almost necessary now to add another check and balance and I think citizens’ groups are that check and balance.”
RCAC’s role in protecting the Sound RCAC is particularly unique because it is funded by Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. (currently at $2.5 million per year), yet maintains its independence and autonomy. While some oil companies are concerned that the RCAC model will spread to other parts of the country, making it more costly to do business, Alyeska’s president, Bob Malone, does see some benefit to having them around.
“There’s no doubt in my mind that RCAC has added value to both the response and prevention side of what we do in Prince William Sound,” said Malone. Alyeska credits RCAC with helping bring in the new powerful tractor tugs, the first of which was christened in February. “I give a lot of credit to Stan Stephens,” said Malone. “His vigilance in pushing that technology and helping us understand how that is going to help minimize the risk has been tremendous.”
In addition to improved tanker escorts, RCAC is involved in many different areas of oil spill prevention and response. These include better ice detection methods (the two worst accidents in Prince William Sound involved ice), clean-up methods including dispersant use, in-situ burning, bioremediation and coordinated near-shore response efforts involving local fishing vessels and coastal residents.
The tanker vapor recovery system is something that benefits Alyeska’s employees at the marine terminal and people of Valdez. “It took 21 years to get tanker vapor recovery,” says Stephens. “The citizens of Valdez should never have had to wait that long.” Monitoring the long-term health of Sound Studying the long-term environmental impacts of the Exxon Valdez spill, and other terminal and tanker operations, are also an important part of RCAC’s work. The council also monitors ballast water discharged by tankers into the treatment facility at the Valdez Marine Terminal. Tanker ballast water, used to stabilize incoming empty tankers, contains everything from crude oil residue to species of plants and animals from ports as far away as Asia. RCAC conducts random sampling of tanker ballast water to determine if there are compounds being brought in that are not being treated with existing technology. They also contract with scientists to study potential invasions by non-indigenous species to the Prince William Sound ecosystem.
RCAC must be re-certified by the U.S. Coast Guard each year to ensure that the council is doing its job as mandated by the 1990 Oil Pollution Act. So far they have passed the Coast Guard’s annual reviews and are regarded as a model that may someday be used elsewhere. Even so, there is rarely unanimous consensus among stakeholders on any issue the council faces. “Industry has to look at the bottom line, that’s what they’re about,” says Stephens. “We’re looking strictly at the protection of the environment. So finding a middle ground is difficult, but we’ve done it quite a number of times. I think we’re all learning, both sides are learning.”
|
