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Puget Sound at risk of oil spill too, Alaskans warn
Tuesday, March 9, 1999
By JOEL CONNELLY
Alaskan activists who warned of a major oil spill before the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster brought a message to Puget Sound residents yesterday: The same thing could happen to you.
They argued that Puget Sound's populace should demand the same safety measures -- notably tug escorts -- put in place after Alaska's Prince William Sound was fouled by an 11 million-gallon oil spill.
The wreck of the freighter New Carissa, whose bow section was being towed out to sea for the second time yesterday, was cited as evidence that the Pacific Northwest is unprepared to quickly deal with an accident in which a ship loses power or runs aground.
"We need to do the same things all the way down the West Coast as are done in our coastal waters," said Stan Stephens, operator of a popular Valdez-based charter boat service and past president of the Prince William Sound Citizens' Advisory Council.
The warning came just before the formal beginning of the 1999 International Oil Spill Conference, a four-day event whose sponsors include the U.S. Coast Guard and the American Petroleum Institute.
Stephens pointed to the recent stationing in Prince William Sound of two big tractor tugs, capable of nudging a tanker from any direction. Each tanker entering and leaving Valdez is accompanied by an emergency response vessel as well as a tug. Oil-laden tankers are escorted to the entrance of Prince William Sound.
By contrast, tankers entering the Strait of Juan de Fuca get no tug escort until they reach Dungeness Spit, east of Port Angeles. A rescue tug has been stationed in Neah Bay as an experiment until May 1.
"We're not perfect. Accidents happen," the conference's chairman, Steve Marshall, said at the opening session of the conference. Marshall has been president of the British Petroleum Shipping Co., and helped direct a major oil spill drill on Prince William Sound last year.
He called on the oil industry, federal environmental agencies, scientists and activists to learn from each other during the four-day session. Exxon and the International Tankers Owners Pollution Federation will take the stage this morning with a session on "Large Spill Recovery Efforts" that will focus, in part, on the Exxon Valdez spill.
But the message from Prince William Sound yesterday was that no oil spill can be cleaned up, and that recovery is a long, painful process.
"We didn't lose just our jobs, we lost our way of life," said Dr. Riki Ott, a marine biologist and gillnet fisher from Cordova, Alaska.
Cordova depends for its livelihood largely on pink salmon and herring from the sound. The pink salmon fishery crashed in 1992 and 1993. The herring followed in 1994. While pink salmon are on the way to recovery, Cordova lost half its processing capacity. The value of once-coveted fishing permits has sunk to a tenth of what they were worth a decade ago.
Ott speaks with credibility. Five hours before the Exxon Valdez went aground on Bligh Reef, she delivered a teleconference talk to a meeting in Valdez and accurately predicted a major spill.
"Given the high frequency of tankers into Port Valdez, the increasing age and size of the tanker fleet, and the inability to quickly contain and clean up an oil spill in the open water of Alaska, fishermen feel that we are playing a game of Russian roulette," she warned.
"When, not if, the Big One does occur and much or all of the income from a fishing season is lost, compensation for processors, support industries and local communities will be difficult if not impossible to obtain."
The biologist's forecasts that night have continued to come true.
The tanker fleet using Prince William Sound has continued to age. Only three of 28 tankers sailing to Valdez have double hulls, although Congress has mandated that all tankers using U.S. waters have double hulls by the year 2015.
"We've spent 90 percent of our money getting ready to take care of oil that is spilled, and only 10 percent on prevention," said Walt Parker, former chairman of the Alaska Oil Spill Commission. Parker has campaigned nearly 30 years for double hulls.
Alaska fishermen are still waiting to be compensated. They won a $5 billion judgment against Exxon in 1994, the second-largest jury award in U.S. history. But the oil company has pursued lengthy appeals. The case will be heard by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals later this spring.
The fishermen have yet to see a penny of the judgment. Yesterday, Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., said Exxon should pay up before it is allowed to merge with the Mobil Corp.
"We need to send the strongest possible message to Exxon and other oil companies: You use your waterways to transport your product . . . so it is your duty to take every precaution," said Gorton. "If you act recklessly, you pay."
But, lamenting yesterday over what has happened to his town in the past 10 years, Dune Lankard, an Eyak Indian activist and Cordova fisherman, said: "Money is not going to make us whole again."
P-I reporter Joel Connelly can be reached at 206-448-8160 or joelconnelly@seattle-pi.com
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