In the Northwest: The reassurances are smooth, but tanker realities are rough

MomSeattle · DadSeattle · SPI · MySeattlePix · My account

Local

US/World

Sports

Business

A&E

Life

Comics

Photos

Opinion

Blogs

Buy Ads

Jobs

Autos

Homes

Rentals

NWsource

Joel Connelly

In the Northwest: The reassurances are smooth, but tanker realities are rough

Monday, June 10, 2002

By JOEL CONNELLY
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST

As Valdez tour-boat pioneer Stan Stephens ticks off the ongoing enhancement of tanker safety in Alaska's Prince William Sound, one gets reminded of an old adage: There's nothing like a hanging in the morning to focus the mind.

The morning was Good Friday of 1989. The "hanging" came when the tanker Exxon Valdez got hung up on rocks of Bligh Reef. It spilled 10.8 million gallons of crude oil and soiled beaches as far as 460 miles away.

The focus came in the 13 years since: 10,000-horsepower tugs have been built (in Anacortes) to escort tankers plying Prince William Sound. Additional sentinel tugs are stationed at strategic spots. The vessel traffic system will soon have radar to monitor icebergs from the time they calve off the Columbia Glacier.

With much progress on his home front, Stephens' worries about oil spills have been transported down the Pacific Coast.

"You have 10 times as much marine traffic as we do," he observed. "We get the same oil tankers all the time. You get them from all over. Puget Sound . ... It's the next place for a serious accident."

He's right on the numbers. With a U.S. flag requirement, only 32 oil tankers ply Prince William Sound: Last year, they made 493 transits of the Alaskan waterway.

Down here, 115 tankers flying flags of many nations passed 560 times through the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Tank barges carrying crude oil, refined petroleum or chemicals made 2,856 transits of Puget Sound.

In addition, 702 cargo and passenger vessels made 1,937 trips through the strait bound for Puget Sound-area ports. An even larger number, 1,252 vessels making 2,306 trips, headed for destinations in British Columbia. Ferries crossed the Sound and strait 168,960 times.

The oil-spill potential of so much traffic is enough to make you want to grab a bottle and pour a double shot of Old Hazlewood.

How to prevent the unthinkable?

"Eternal vigilance," answered Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash.

We've not had a "hanging" here, but a pair of mind-focusing medium-sized incidents. A spill from the barge Nestucca off Grays Harbor, late in 1988, sent oil north to Canada's Pacific Rim National Park on Vancouver Island.

In July 1991, a Chinese grain ship cut through the fish processor Tenyo Maru northwest of Cape Flattery. Oil was carried as far south as Oregon. It fouled famed beaches of our Olympic National Park.

Both spills spurred efforts to improve U.S.-Canada cooperation and cleanup capability.

A quarter-century ago, the U.S. Coast Guard ridiculed notions of potential danger, here as well as in Prince William Sound.

As newspapers ran exposes on tankers using the wrong shipping lanes in the strait -- and potential consequences of a collision -- reassurances were given by a Coast Guard spokesman with the bad luck to be named David Jones.

The contrast could not have been more striking this spring when I spent three hours with Capt. Mike Moore, captain of the port for Puget Sound. He laid out proactive policies for boarding ships with suspicious cargoes, spotty safety records and crews with suspect linguistic skills.

Oil tankers bound for Puget Sound-areas refineries pick up a tug escort at Dungeness Spit. And under a Senate bill approved Friday, a new 87-foot Coast Guard cutter will be stationed at nearby Port Angeles.

But marine safety remains beset by feuds that date back 25 years to when Sen. Warren Magnuson got a law that banned supertankers from Puget Sound.

The tankers permitted in our waters traverse 70 miles of strait before receiving a pilot and escort. The Coast Guard resists stationing of a rescue tug at Neah Bay, holding that tugs can be summoned from inland waters in an emergency.

If the Coast Guard were forced to pay for a rescue tug just to protect one area -- the outer strait -- "we would measurably reduce marine safety in our region through less inspections, no pollution response and significantly reduced vessel traffic management," Moore argued.

As well, the Coast Guard and shipping interests remain fiercely protective of jurisdiction. When Washington passed tough oil-spill prevention rules after the Exxon Valdez disaster, a consortium of tanker owners -- joined by the Clinton administration -- got the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down the law.

Bad feelings are widespread.

After giving politic answers to Seattle Post-Intelligencer editors a few years back, a Coast Guard admiral made a withering crack about "emotionalism" of state officials as his delegation rose to leave. The Coast Guard believes that its expertise gets cast aside by media and politicians.

In turn, critics complain that citizen input gets cast into Davey Jones' Locker by Coast Guard brass eying retirement sinecures in the shipping business. The agency has sometimes appeared a "captive of industry," Dicks observed.

Word is out these days that listening is a vital component of homeland security. Marine safety is a good place to start.

On Maundy Thursday of 1989, as the Exxon Valdez was preparing to leave port, a Prince William Sound fisherman and biologist, Dr. Rikki Ott, predicted to a Valdez meeting that a major spill ("the Big One") was probable and uncontainable.

Critics can be on the mark.

P-I columnist Joel Connelly can be reached at 206-448-8160 or joelconnelly@seattlepi.com

Add Joel Connelly headlines to