Alaska’s Oil Spill Barges Lacking Storage
ANCHORAGE, Alaska _ Tanker companies have admitted to the state that their Prince William Sound oil-spill response barges _ vital tools for a cleanup operation _ can’t hold as much oil as originally specified.
Now state pollution regulators are mulling whether to hit the ship operators with a violation or fine.
“It’s an urgent issue and we are taking action,” said Betty Schorr, industry preparedness program manager for the state Department of Environmental Conservation.
The barges would play a critical role in the event of a large spill, serving as holding tanks for oil and oily water skimmed from the Sound.
Tanker operators for oil companies BP, Conoco Phillips, Exxon Mobil and others disclosed in a “notice of nonreadiness” to the state Thursday that barges arrayed around the Sound can hold about 68,700 barrels or nearly 2.9 million gallons less than previously thought.
That trims the holding capacity of the five barges by 10 to 15 percent, Schorr said. The barges, along with powerful tugs and other gear, were deployed around the Sound in the wake of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, which released about 11 million gallons of crude oil into the water.
The DEC and state lawyers are reviewing the barge capacity shortfall, and might cite the tanker operators Monday with a notice of violation, Schorr said. A civil fine could follow.
“That is a possibility if they’re found out of compliance,” she said.
Tanker operators said a consultant discovered the capacity shortfall while reviewing the performance of oil-skimming and other equipment on the barges.
At least part of capacity error came from not accounting for the weight of spill cleanup equipment on the decks of the barges, Schorr said.
The tanker companies did the right thing and notified DEC officials, said Anil Mathur, president of Alaska Tanker Co., a Beaverton, Ore., company that hauls North Slope crude oil for BP.
Despite the lower barge capacity, Mathur said tanker operators don’t believe they’ve violated state law on oil spill response preparedness.
“No change in equipment has occurred,” Alaska Tanker Co. manager Capt. Tom Colby wrote in the Thursday letter to DEC. “Rather, in the course of efforts to improve our barge system, we unexpectedly discovered that an assumption with respect to barge storage capacity was inaccurate. Out of an abundance of caution we disclosed this information to the department.”
Discovery of the capacity error has not halted or slowed down oil shipments out of the Sound, DEC and oil company spokesmen said Friday.
A big reason for that is a raft of extra precautions the tanker companies have voluntarily put into place until the barge matter is settled, Schorr said.
Barges have been repositioned or put on standby in the Sound and in Cook Inlet; tug escorts for loaded tankers have been increased; and a one-way traffic zone for tankers moving through Valdez Narrows has been extended.
The tanker operators, which include Conoco’s Polar Tankers Inc. subsidiary, Exxon’s SeaRiver Maritime Inc. and others, also originally committed to running oil-laden tankers through the Sound only during daylight, but quickly dropped that measure.
It was a “stupid idea” that could increase traffic congestion and risk as tankers move in and out of Valdez, Mathur said.
One potential solution to the barge problem might be to bring in another barge to boost capacity, he said.
But Mathur said his preference would be to concentrate on preventing spills in the first place, not laying out more money for after-the-fact equipment.
The Prince William Sound Regional Citizens’ Advisory Council, which keeps watch over tanker operations, questioned why the shipping companies would not “immediately obtain additional storage capacity to resolve any shortfall.”
But council spokesman Stan Jones gave the tanker operators credit for self-reporting the barge shortfall.
“They dug it up themselves, they disclosed it and now they’re working supposedly to remedy it,” he said.
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