Valdez Vanguard

8/21/02

Obituary

Valdez resident Steve Provant died Aug. 16, 2002, 

at

Providence Medical Center in Anchorage 

of Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia.

A Celebration of Life will be held today at 3 p.m. at Bayside Community Church.

He was born in 1938 and graduated from Oregon State

University in 1960, also getting his Master's Degree in Organic Chemistry from Oregon State in 1963.

He married his wife, Mary, on Sept. 2, 1962, in Grants

Pass, Ore. He began his career with the Central Intelligence Agency in Washington, DC.

In 1967, they moved to Fairbanks with the Federal Water Pollution

Control Administration, which later became the Environmental Protection Agency. His career with EPA took him to Anchorage in 1970, where he did the first water quality studies of the Alyeska pipeline.

In 1977 he transferred to the EPA Idaho Operations Office in

Boise, where he grew up. The Exxon Valdez oil spill brought him back to Alaska on loan from EPA to assist ADEC as the State's first On-Scene Coordinator for the spill.

Steve retired in June 2001 from ADEC as manager of the Marine Vessels Section.

His family said: “He forged consensus with industry and the public in oil spill prevention and contingency planning with his positive attitude, sense of humor and cooperative approach. He advocated technological advances in spill preparedness that resulted in world class spill response for Prince William Sound.”

He is survived by his wife, Mary; and his three children, Kris of Meridian, Idaho. Andrew and wife Sandy of Boise, Idaho; and Molly of Oakland, Calif.