The T/V Exxon Valdez ran aground on Bligh Reef, about 25 miles from the Trans
Alaska Pipeline terminal at Valdez, on March 24, 1989, at 12:03 a.m. Eight of
the 11 cargo tanks were ruptured and Alaska North Slope crude oil began gushing
from the tanker into the waters of Prince William Sound. The state and federal
governments estimate that 250,000 to 260,000 barrels of North Slope crude oil
(11 million U.S. gallons) spilled from the tanker.
The state's response effort began with Dan Lawn, the Valdez District Office
manager from the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC). Lawn
was notified of the spill by Alyeska at 1:05 a.m. He then spoke with the Coast
Guard captain of the port, CMDR Steve McCall, and made arrangements to
accompany the Coast Guard to the site of the grounding. Before setting off for
the high-speed trip to the tanker in a Valdez pilot vessel, Lawn triggered
(within state government) a chain reaction of notification that called up
responders from Anchorage, Wasilla, and Juneau beginning about 4 a.m. Within
24-30 hours, DEC would have more than 30 people in Valdez setting up the aerial
surveillance, general monitoring, computer mapping, and other programs that
would function in one form or another for the better part of three years.
Lawn would remain on the tanker for the next 15 hours, using the ship's
satellite telephone to call Anchorage and Valdez with regular updates on the
amount of oil lost and the stability of the vessel. He also made regular calls
to the Alyeska terminal, asking when the equipment and responders required by
the Alyeska contingency plan would arrive. Alyeska officials repeatedly assured
Lawn that the gear was on the way, when in some cases it was not even loaded on
barges or vessels.
Commissioner Dennis Kelso of the DEC got word of the spill about 6 a.m. from
his deputy, Amy Kyle, who had been phoned at home by Anchorage DEC staff at
approximately 4 a.m. Kyle and the department's environmental quality staff set
up some preliminary plans and arranged a full briefing for the Governor and the
commissioner at 8:30 a.m., as the magnitude of the spill began to become clear.
Governor Steve Cowper had learned of the spill about an hour earlier, from a
reporter who was conducting an early-morning interview with the Governor in his
hometown of Fairbanks. At the close of the interview, the focus of which was
completely unrelated to oil or the environment, the reporter asked Cowper his
thoughts on the spill. When Cowper heard the details, he immediately began
making arrangements to get to Valdez. After speaking with Cowper by phone from
Juneau, Kelso caught a regularly scheduled flight from Juneau to Cordova, on
the southeast rim of Prince William Sound. From there, a U.S. Coast Guard
helicopter took him to Valdez, where he met the Governor. About 4 p.m., the
Governor and Kelso flew by float plane to the Exxon Valdez. On board they met
Lawn and DEC investigator Joe LeBeau, who pointed out that equipment was
overdue, and that what was on-scene was not working very well.
Two skimmers -- which were full at the time were motoring somewhat aimlessly
around the massive slick. There was little or no boom deployed, and what was in
the water were tiny strings of boom that were neither containing nor deflecting
any significant amount of crude. Cowper was incensed by what he would later
call a slow and inadequate response. He was also aware of the possible use of
dispersants. Kelso and Lawn gave him a quick briefing on the zones of use and
the approval process, and Cowper gave no instructions that would alter or
affect the pre-approved strategy. He understood, correctly, that the system had
been designed to make sure that chemical dispersants were used in a controlled
and effective manner, and that critical habitats would not be put at risk by
bad targeting or misuse of the chemicals.
Back in Valdez, after visiting the tanker, Cowper appeared at a community
meeting and press conference at the Valdez civic center. Exxon's chief
executive officer Frank Iarossi had spoken to the group earlier, noting that
Exxon would be moving quickly to use dispersants on the growing slick. This
made the public, especially the fishing community, somewhat uncomfortable. The
implication of Iarossi's statement was that dispersant use was the response of
choice, and that Exxon was moving in to do it. This was at odds with the plans
in place -- which the fishing organization had reviewed -- and it implied that
Exxon had some authority to take controversial and potentially risky steps to
deal with the oil spill that threatened public health and public resources.
Fishermen wanted some assurance that someone other than Exxon was at the
switch, someone or some entity that was accountable to the public. They were
not eager to hand over to a private company the authority to make critical
decisions about public resources -- resources that were literally the
foundation of area's economy. And from Iarossi's comments, it seemed the
decision was all but made.
When Cowper stepped before the group, he was asked about Iarossi's statement He
replied, "There has been a lot of speculation on the use of dispersants.
Everybody realized the risk that that poses to marine life .... I want to
assure everybody that dispersant is not going to be used in anything other than
a carefully targeted way want to make sure that we check back with the fishing
community, that we check the [Alaska Department of] Fish and Game, and do as
little damage as possible. You can't use dispersants without doing damage to
marine life. That's clear. But want if possible to keep the oil off the
beaches."
Cowper had crystallized in his comments exactly the type of discussion the
Alaska Regional Response Team and state agencies had gone through in developing
the preapproval process for dispersants two weeks before the spill. He was
merely asking the people in the Valdez civic center that there was an
established mechanism making these public policy decisions, and that no one had
unilateral authority to circumvent the process or change the rules.
At the time Iarossi made his comments, he was not familiar with the process and
was, perhaps, assuming more authority than Exxon actually had. Cowper's
comments were not some new state policy; the Governor was, instead, letting
people know that the government understood the risks and the benefits of
dispersants, and that the protection of the fisheries and the local economy was
among the government's central concerns.
Aside from the obvious priorities of public and environmental health and safety
raised by the tanker disaster, the first three or four days of the spill were
dominated by four principal issues:
a) the inadequacy of the Alyeska response;
b) the confusing and unauthorized "hand-off" of
the spill by Alyeska to Exxon;
c) the dispersant disagreement;
d) the gross lack of cleanup resources.
Alyeska's response was slow and weak; it did not meet the requirements of the
contingency plan. It is important to keep in mind that the contingency plan was
not so much a set of requirements established by the government, but rather a
set of response standards that Alyeska had agreed were reasonable and
attainable.
The "hand-off" of response authority by Alyeska to Exxon caused confusion and
delays. Exxon assumed for itself a role as chief responder, and comments made
by Exxon officials sent a message to the public that the governments were not
really charge of making key decisions and protecting public resources and the
public interest.
From the standpoint of the progress of the response, Exxon's insistence on
following its own preferred strategy and its reluctance to concentrate on the
strategy preferred by the government, even after the technical results of
dispersant drops were inconclusive -- compounded I botched response by Alyeska.
All of this, however, is tangential to the real issue, which was becoming
increasingly clear to the Alaska public: No one was fully prepared to deal with
a spill of magnitude. There wasn't enough equipment, and technology did not
provide deep redundancy or a broad range of options. The mechanical
capabilities were overwhelmed, and the chemical possibilities had severe
limitations. Burning worked for a little while, but the window of opportunity
closed quickly as the oil slick began to have a higher water content. The
conditions were marginal for dispersants, regardless of the risks the chemicals
presented.
The public was outraged. The fishing community, especially in Cordova, was
suddenly and unexpectedly confronted with the fact that industry and government
either didn't know or didn't fully explain the fragility of the safety net
underneath the Trans-Alaska Oil Pipeline System and the tankers that cruised
almost daily through Prince William Sound.
In any case, the weather put a quick end to the initial response. Late on
Easter Sunday, March 26, a severe, late-winter storm was approaching the Sound.
Between Sunday and early Monday morning, the wind blew gusts up to a maximum of
73 miles per hour (70 mph is considered "hurricane force"). Flight operations
were seriously curtailed, although a National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA) helicopter got into the air before noon Monday. Observers
noted that the oil was no longer in a single, compact slick. Breakaway patches
and thick windrows of oil and mousse hit shorelines in the vicinity of Smith,
Seal and Naked islands. Oil stretched as far as 40 miles south-southwest of the
grounding site. Skimmers and other response vessels had retreated into more
sheltered areas, away from the oil, to wait out the weather.
By afternoon, the winds had fallen somewhat, but were still high. Within Valdez
Arm itself -- more protected than the relatively open waters between Bligh Reef
and the western islands of the Sound -- northeast winds were running a steady
30 knots with gusts to 40; seas were four feet within the arm, higher and
choppier and sloppier outside. A few surveillance aircraft got into the air
that afternoon. Later reports showed that oil and mousse were already on or
near the shores of Eleanor and Knight islands.
If the spill was at first overwhelming, it was now out of control. Throughout
the rest of March and most of April, various configurations of skimmers and
boom and barges would attempt on-the-water cleanup, but actual recovery of oil
was extremely low, compared with the size of the problem. By March 30, a week
after the spill, various estimates of recovery hovered around 5,000 barrels
(about two percent of what was spilled), and even that figure was somewhat
misleading, considering that the total estimate of recovery included water and
mousse, not just oil. NOAA estimated that an additional 75,000 - 100,000
barrels had probably evaporated, as the lightest fractions of the crude oil
turned to gas and dispersed in the atmosphere.
After the Easter storm, the effectiveness of on-the-water recovery could really
not be judged in a cumulative sense. Oil patches were spread widely throughout
the western Sound and, as the weeks went by, to the Kenai Peninsula and the
Kodiak archipelago. Recovery varied from site to site, and success could most
realistically be judged against a specific threat to a specific resource or
shoreline. As a whole, on-the-water recovery was hampered by weathering oil,
long distances, equipment limitations, storage limitations, and spotting
capability. By the first week of May, there was no real effort to contain and
collect free-floating oil.
The agencies and responders turned to several major tasks: planning and
coordination for shoreline cleanup; defensive booming, especially at the Prince
William Sound hatcheries; and stabilizing the Exxon Valdez and getting the
remaining one million barrels of oil off the ship.
Final Report, State of Alaska Response
Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, June 1993
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