State Rep. Debra Lekanoff, D-Bow, grew up in the small town of
Yakutat, Alaska, where her entire family and most of her friends
hunted and fished, following Native American traditions passed down
from their ancestors.
Rep. Lekanoff carries with her that indelible perspective, as
she goes about the business of law-making. Like all of us, her
personal history has shaped the forces that drive her today. Now,
as sponsor of
House Bill 1578, she is pushing hard for a law to help protect
Puget Sound from a catastrophic oil spill.
KTVA, the CBS affiliate in
Anchorage, presented a program Sunday on the 30th anniversary of
the Exxon Valdez oil spill. // Video:
KTVA-TV
In 1989, Debra, a member of the Tlinget Tribe, was about to
graduate from high school when the Exxon Valdez ran aground in
Prince William Sound, some 220 miles northwest of her hometown. The
spill of 11 million gallons of crude oil ultimately killed an
estimated 250,000 seabirds, 2,800 sea otters, 300 harbor seals, 250
bald eagles and up to 22 killer whales, along with untold numbers
of fish and crabs, according to the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (PDF 11.5 mb).
That was 30 years ago this past Sunday.
Arctic drilling may be delayed until next year, because Shell’s
oil-containment vessel is still not ready, according to Secretary
of Interior Ken Salazar.
“I will hold their feet to the fire in terms of making sure that
we are doing everything we can to abide by the standards and
regulations we have set, and to make sure that the environment and
the Arctic seas are protected,” Salazar said during a press
conference in Anchorage.
A shell spokesman expressed hope that the drilling would still
begin this fall.
The Greenpeace ship Esperanza is not sitting around waiting for
Shell to begin its drilling in the Alaskan Arctic. Greenpeace
biologists have reported the presence of a soft coral at the drill
site. I’m not sure how significant this is, but Julie Eilperin of
the
Washington Post has the story. Greenpeace
has the photo.
—–
The U.S. Department of Interior released a five-year plan for
oil and gas leases yesterday, as two Shell exploratory rigs headed
out of Puget Sound on their way to the Alaskan Arctic.
The Shell drilling vessels Kulluk and Noble Discoverer were
headed for Alaska’s Dutch Harbor, where they will wait until the
ice clears in Beaufort and Chukchi seas. See
Vigor’s news release about alterations made to the two
rigs.
In a
news release with links to the plans, David J. Hayes, deputy
secretary of the Interior, said :
“We are committed to moving forward with leasing offshore
Alaska, and scheduling those sales later in the program allows for
further development of scientific information on the oil and gas
resource potential in these areas and further study of potential
impacts to the environment. We must reconcile energy resource
development with the sensitive habitats, unique conditions and
important other uses, including subsistence hunting and fishing,
that are present in Alaska waters.”
—–
UPDATE, June 27
This week, the Obama administration will announce a five-year
program for offshore oil-leasing. It will include targeted areas
for exploration and drilling in Alaska’s Arctic, Secretary of
Interior Ken Salazar said yesterday.
Salazar said permits to allow Shell to conduct exploratory
drilling in the Arctic, as we have discussed in this blog, are
likely to be issued soon.
Associated Press writer Dan Joling does a nice job explaining
Salazar’s comments. See
Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
—–
UPDATE, June 22
The Greenpeace ship Esperanza has arrived in Alaskan waters. Photo
posted on Twitter.
—–
UPDATE, June 12, 3 p.m.
The Greenpeace ship Esperanza has left Seattle on its way to the
Arctic, according to ongoing reports on Twitter. As
of 3 p.m., the ship is just crossing the Edmonds-Kingston ferry
lanes.
—–
UPDATE, June 12, 2:30 p.m.
I’ve added maps of the two drilling areas at the bottom of this
post.
—–
After anchoring for nearly a week in South Kitsap’s Yukon
Harbor, the Greenpeace ship Esperanza on Friday moved over to
Seattle, where it now waits for Shell’s oil-drilling rigs to shove
off for Alaska.
The Greenpeace ship
Esperanza was anchored in Yukon Harbor for nearly a week.
Photo by Tom Warren
Shell obtained an
injunction (PDF 32 kb) against Greenpeace in hopes of
preventing environmental activists from boarding its oil rig and
unfurling banners or causing more serious damage.
“After obtaining multiple approvals from various federal
agencies, and after completing preparations that have been years
and billions of dollars in the making, Shell intends to lawfully,
safely, and responsibly carry out an exploration drilling program
on its leases in the Chukchi Sea and Beaufort Sea in the summer of
2012.
“Greenpeace intends to prevent Shell from doing so, and has
initiated tortious and illegal actions to accomplish this
publically-stated intent. Greenpeace’s past and present actions
establish that Greenpeace can and will engage in dangerous and
illegal activities that place human life, property, and the
environment at risk, all in an effort to impose its will and to
capitalize on publicity generated by its antics.”
Greenpeace says its goal is to shadow the oil rigs and document
the activities from miniature submarines to help the public
understand the dangers that drilling poses to the fragile Arctic
ecosystem.
See Kitsap Sun, June 4.
For environmentalists, the biggest question is: How did this
drilling ever get approval? Why did a Democratic president allow
Shell to get all the permits necessary to explore for oil in the
Arctic, after strong opposition through the years succeeded in
keeping drilling rigs out of the Arctic.
Shell was strategic in its approach, as described in a
well-researched story by John M. Broder and Clifford Krauss for the
New York Times:
“Beyond the usual full-court lobbying effort, Shell abandoned
its oil industry brethren and joined advocates pushing for a strong
response to climate change.
“Ultimately, Shell won the backing of a president it had viewed
warily during the 2008 campaign. While he signaled conditional
support for the proposal years ago, Mr. Obama came under pressure
from rising gasoline prices and the assiduous lobbying of a
freshman Democratic senator from Alaska eager to show he could make
things happen in Washington.
“The move also provides the president a measure of political
cover. ‘Alaska tends to be a litmus test for the energy debate,’
said Amy Myers Jaffe, director of energy policy research at Rice
University. ‘When Romney says the president is anti-drilling and
causes high gas prices, Obama can turn around and say, “I approved
drilling in Alaska.”’”
By
executive order, Obama set up a special interagency commission
to oversee “the safe and responsible development of onshore and
offshore energy resources and associated infrastructure in
Alaska.”
Obama’s steady pressure in favor of drilling in the Arctic
(“It’s not deep water, right?”) eventually overcame concerns within
his own administration, despite warnings from the commission
investigating the BP oil-spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
According to the NY Times article:
“The commission’s final report said that for Arctic drilling to
be done safely, ‘both industry and government will have to
demonstrate standards and a level of performance higher than they
have ever achieved before.’ …
“The government strengthened its Arctic research programs to
better understand the impact of increased industrial activity in
the northern ocean. Those and other concessions seemed to placate
officials at the permitting agencies, who were navigating between
their regulatory duties and the president’s obvious desire to
drill.
“Shell’s permits came in a rush.
Interior approved exploration in both seas by last December.
Response plans were endorsed in February and March of this year.
The EPA’s appeals board cleared the final air permits at the end of
March — just as the whaling season got under way. NOAA came through
with a
marine mammal permit in early May.”
As far as I can tell, Shell is waiting only for its final
drilling permits from the Department of Interior and for the ice to
clear in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas.
Shell's oil-drilling rig
Kulluk prepares to head for Alaska. This photo was taken last year
on its way into Seattle.
AP file photo, 2011
As Shell’s oil rigs prepare to pull out of Seattle, Alaska’s
governor and the state’s two U.S. senators recently visited Seattle
to take a look at Shell’s oil rigs on the eve of the historic
drilling activity, as reported by Jennifer A. Dlouhy of the
Houston Chronicle.
Dlouhy quoted Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican, as expressing
confidence in Shell’s ability to drill safely: “I think they know
as well as anybody that there is no margin for cutting
corners.”
The article also included environmental concerns about an oil
spill in the fragile Arctic ecosystem, which could be worse than
the Exxon Valdez in Prince Williams Sound, where oil is still
showing up 23 years after a multibillion-dollar cleanup.
“If there is a spill in the Arctic, the oil and damage will
almost certainly degrade slower and last longer,” Richard Steiner,
former marine conservation professor at the University of Alaska
was quoted as saying.
A new story out this morning in
Macleans magazine includes an interview with Peter Voser, chief
executive officer of Royal Dutch Shell, who touches briefly on this
summer’s drilling in the Arctic:
During last year’s oil blow-out in the Gulf of Mexico, I kept
thinking about our home waters of Puget Sound.
I kept hearing reports about the conflicts and confusion among
the state, federal and local governments operating in the region. I
am fairly convinced that intergovernmental cooperation would be
better in Washington state, because I have seen representatives of
numerous agencies working together on blue-ribbon panels,
high-level committees, contingency-planning efforts and oil-spill
drills.
One big question that remains controversial is whether this
state has enough of the right kinds of oil-spill response equipment
in the right places.
On Tuesday, state Rep. Christine Rolfes, a Democrat from
Bainbridge Island, announced legislation to address this issue. She
offered her legislative proposal as the National Commission on the
BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill released its final recommendations
about what went wrong in the Gulf and what should be done to
improve deep-water drilling and oil-spill responses. Continue reading →
UPDATE, OCTOBER 15
President Obama signed the Coast Guard Authorization Bill today.
For details, check out the news
release from U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell.
—–
President Obama is expected to sign a sweeping authorization
bill that reorganizes U.S Coast Guard operations, increases
maritime safety rules and calls for improved oil-spill prevention
and response in the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
It seems this bill has something for everyone, at least among
those of us living in coastal states. By skimming through the
Coast
Guard bill or reading
a summary, you get an idea of just how sweeping these changes
will be for the Coast Guard.
The legislation, largely written by Sen. Maria Cantwell of
Washington, was blocked by Republican leaders in the Senate for the
past four years. To get approval, several provisions were stripped
from the bill in the Senate. Then in the House, many of these ideas
were put back in and ultimately approved when it came back to the
Senate.
What are the most important parts of the bill? Well, that
depends on whether you are involved in the Coast Guard, the
shipping industry, the fishing fleet or just want to protect
against oil spills or terrorists. Continue reading →
As the worst ecological disaster in U.S. history unfolds in the
Gulf of Mexico, emotions are boiling over along the Gulf Coast.
An oil-covered pelican
flaps its wings on an island in Barataria Bay off the coast of
Louisiana on Sunday. The island, home to hundreds of brown pelican
and other birds, is being hit by oil washing ashore.
AP photo by Patrick Semansky
Sitting here in the Pacific Northwest, I am still dazed by the
realization that an oil well, nearly a mile under water, has gone
out of control, spewing millions of gallons of crude and creating
an underwater mess bigger than what we see on the surface.
I cannot fathom that we are experiencing a disaster likely to be
many times worse than Alaska’s Exxon Valdez. Until somebody figures
out how to turn off the flow of oil, we can’t begin to estimate the
size of this catastrophe or imagine that things will get
better.
BP is hoping that a process, never used underwater, will stop
the flow of oil. The technique, called a “top kill” and performed
on above-ground wells in the Middle East, involves shooting heavy
mud and cement into the well. The first shot could come tomorrow.
Chances of success are estimated at 60-70 percent by BP, but the
company’s track record for estimates has not been good so far.
Oily dead birds and other sea life, predicted weeks ago, are
washing up on shore. Sensitive marsh lands, impossible to clean
without destroying them, have been touched. Longtime fishermen and
fishing communities are shut down.
“Once it gets in the marsh, it’s impossible to get out,” Charles
Collins, 68, a veteran crew boat captain told reporters for the
Los Angeles Times. “All your shrimp are born in the marsh. All
your plankton. The marsh is like the beginning of life in the sea.
And it’s in the marshes. Bad.”
Yesterday, I joined a telephone press conference with Lisa
Jackson, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. She
was doing her best to calmly cope with the enormity of the
disaster. She had just come off a boat after witnessing oil piling
up on shore. Joining her was Coast Guard Rear Adm. Mary Landry, who
is in charge of the National Response Team.
Jackson said the federal government has ordered BP to cut back
on the use of dispersants, which break up the oil but may have some
toxic effects. No formal studies have ever been conducted on the
effects of applying huge quantities of dispersants underwater, but
limited studies in recent days suggest that this approach may be
the least harmful method to keep the oil from coming ashore.
Without such treatment, the oil itself is highly toxic and a
much greater concern, she said. BP has been ordered to look for
less toxic alternatives than the dispersant currently being used,
but safer alternatives may not be available in the quantities
needed. Meanwhile, Jackson said her staff believes the treatment
can be equally effective by using half or less the amount of
chemical applied until now.
Keeping as much oil off the shorelines as possible seems to be
the top priority. That starts by keeping some of the oil immersed
as tiny droplets underwater. Oil that reaches the surface is
attacked by skimmers and burned if necessary. Fighting the oil with
absorbent booms and pads along the shore is the last step.
I hope this strategy is not one of “out of sight, out of mind,”
because the oil immersed in the water becomes a problem of its own.
It’s been compared to a bottle of oil-and-vinegar salad dressing
that you shake up, breaking the oil into tiny globules that float
around. Smaller globules are believed to degrade faster in the
environment.
Still, with this oil starting 5,000 feet below the surface, it
could take months or years to coalesce, rise to the surface and
come ashore, where cleanup crews could be facing oil damage for an
undetermined amount of time.
“I’m afraid we’re just seeing the beginning of what is going to
be a long, ugly summer,” Ed Overton, who has consulted on oil
spills for three decades, told Bob Marshall, a reporter with the
New Orleans Times-Picayune. “I hope and pray I’m wrong, but I
think what we’re in for is seeing a little bit come in each day at
different places for a long, long time — months and months. That’s
not what I said in the beginning of this. But events have made me
amend my thoughts.”
Some constituents of the oil will never come ashore but will
drop to the bottom of the Gulf in various locations. As specialized
bacteria move in to break down the oily compounds, they will
consume oxygen, potentially adding to the dead zone in the Gulf of
Mexico.
If this were an earthquake, I would be reporting on damage
assessments and offering hope for a renewed community. If this were
an oil spill from a ship, I would be talking about worse-case
scenarios and long-term effects. But, frankly, it is hard to know
what to say when the spill goes on and on with no certainty at
all.
To view a live video feed of the oil spill, go to
BP’s web cam mounted on a remotely operated vehicle.
Last, but not least, I am learning a good deal from bloggers who
are part of the UC Davis
Oiled Wildlife Care Network. They are working in the Gulf and
providing an insider’s view about their work with affected
wildlife.
Pelicans fly past a nest of
eggs on an island off the the coast of Louisiana on Saturday. The
island, home to hundreds of brown pelican nests, is being impacted
by oil coming ashore.
AP Photo by Gerald Herbert
Washington state officials were wondering if spill responders
would be ready for an oil spill in Puget Sound this week, given
that 26 of the most knowledgeable contract employees had been sent
to assist in the Gulf of Mexico.
So officials with the Washington Department of Ecology announced
a surprise drill today, calling on Marine Spill Response
Corporation and its subcontractors to respond to six pretend spills
all at the same time.
“This was the first time we have ever been involved in a
simultaneous unannounced drill in multiple locations,” said Curt
Hart, media relations manager for Ecology’s spill program.
“It went very well,” Curt told me. “What we can say is that we
have not lost any readiness in Washington. But nothing is perfect.
There will be lessons to learn from every (spill exercise.)”
MSRC serves as the response contractor for 20 regulated
oil-handling and shipping companies in Washington state. With 26
top-level people gone from MSRC in this region, much the
responsibility fell to Global Diving and Salvage, a company that
normally get assignments for specific tasks. In this case, Global
officials played a key role in calling the shots.
Ecology had been stressing to MSRC that the company should send
people to help in the Gulf but not if it had to reduce its response
in Puget Sound. Today’s exercise tested that agreement, including
the capabilities of Global as it “backfilled” for MSRC.
Hart seemed pleased with the outcome. First-level responders and
their equipment were generally ready at the terminals where the
simulated spills took place, and additional equipment was called
into play.
The locations of the simulated spills were in Anacortes,
Bellingham, Port Angeles, Seattle and Tacoma, with Neah Bay added
at the last minute. The drill ultimately called out 16 vessels and
41 personnel. The drill tested communications and equipment.
“We held their feet to the fire,” Hart told me.
While today’s simultaneous exercise was a first, another 50
drills are scheduled through the rest of the year to test all
aspects of the industry’s oil-spill contingency plans, according to
Hart.
In addition to the drills, Ecology inspectors have conducted 23
inspections this year to make sure equipment is available and
ready, he said.
With 22 billion gallons of oil transferred across Puget Sound
each year, the risks of a spill are very real, Curt said, despite
an extensive prevention program, which includes placing boom around
ships during oil transfers whenever practical.
When Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano declared the
oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico a matter of national significance,
she essentially put on alert all emergency management systems
across the country.
Washington Department of Ecology, which is responsible for
responding to oil spills in this state, has identified resources
the agency could send while maintaining an adequate local response
capability, said Ecology’s Curt Hart in a memo he issued Monday to
news reporters and editors.
Spill response companies in Washington and across the country
are identifying people and resources that could be sent to the
Gulf, he said.
Hart is communications manager for Ecology’s Spill Prevention,
Preparedness, and Response Program. Here’s a portion of his
memo:
Ecology expects to continue to receive requests for people and
equipment from the spill response community to assist in the
response. Our department is working to make sure we have a sound
plan in place to process these requests. It is important that we
are well coordinated in this effort and that no required response
resources are moved out of Washington state without explicit
approval.
Some, like the Marine Spill Response Corp., have already sent 26
experienced responders, 15,000 gallons of chemical dispersants used
to minimize oil shoreline impacts, 1,400 feet of special fireproof
boom to burn oil in place on the water.
On Friday, April 30, the Department of Homeland Security asked
state agencies in Washington, including Ecology, what resources
they could send to aid our Gulf coast communities if and when it
becomes necessary.
This type of issue is not new to Ecology. We have had mutual aid
plans in place with the other west coast states and the Province of
British Columbia since 1993. It is our general policy to provide
the appropriate resources necessary to support our partners in the
United States and Canada in order to protect our national
environmental and economic interest. We may also need their help in
return someday.
Ecology and other state agencies are participating in the state
Department of Military Emergency Management Division’s “Emergency
Management Assistance Compact (EMAC)” activation. EMAC is a
national interstate mutual aid agreement that enables states to
share resources during times of disaster. We have identified the
types and number of resources that we could send while still
maintaining our local response capability.
In addition to private responders, Ecology has indicated that it
could send 11 specialists in oil spills and natural resources and
27 shoreline cleanup technicians, according to an
Associated Press story by George Tibbits.
It is likely that the cleanup will go on for months. In previous
oil-spill cleanups, workers who come later to relieve the first
responders are invaluable — and that may be when the most workers
from the West Coast are called in.
