Communication a problem in Spain’s clean up effort
By Jedediah R. Smith
Valdez Vanguard
When the Bahamian-flagged tanker Prestige broke in half and sank more than two miles to the ocean floor off the Atlantic coast of Spain, it was laden with 20 million gallons of fuel oil - nearly the size of two Exxon Valdez tankers.
Since the Nov. 17, 2002, accident, the ship has belched gobs of oil and more than 45,000 tons of solid waste and 35,000 tons of liquid waste have washed up on the Spanish and French coasts.
Scientists hoped the ocean pressure and temperatures would help solidify the oil and prevent it from surfacing. However, the tanker is expected to continue leaking oil for the next three years. The spill has already destroyed 90 percent of the fishing economy and has damaged wildlife.
At the request of the Spanish government, Alyeska Pipeline Service Company, in cooperation with the State of Alaska, sent three of its employees, one contracted worker, and three specialized containment booms to aid in the cleanup effort.
Mark Delozier, senior operations manager for Alyeska’s Ship Escort Response Vessel System, Martin Parsons and Curtis Wright, response coordinators for SERVS, Eric Williams, a foreman for contractor TCC, and Tony Parkin, an oil spill response project manager for the Prince William Sound Regional Citizens’ Advisory Council, all traveled to La Coruna, Spain, on Dec. 28 to educate Spanish responders in oil cleanup.
Richard Ranger, operations technical advisor for Alyeska, said the boom that was sent to Spain was developed specifically for SERVS by the Norwegian company NOFI. The two “Current Busters, and one “Ocean Buster” were developed to pick up concentrated oil. The tear-drop shaped booms sit higher in the water than other booms, produce less resistance as they are dragged, and have an increased range of operation in severe weather conditions.
While the Ocean Buster has not been used in a real spill scenario, Ranger said a Current Buster was used successfully when the fishing tender Windy Bay sank in Prince William Sound during the summer of 2001. The Windy Bay was loaded with 30,000 gallons of diesel fuel.
The SERVS crew spent much of the first week in Spain unpacking and repairing the Ocean Buster boom, which received minor damage during a test deployment in British Columbia shortly before the Prestige spill.
The three booms will remain in Spain after the Valdez crews leave. NOFI will construct new replacements and ship them to Valdez by the spring, according to Ranger.
Parkin said he hoped to help the communities in Spain develop a citizens council similar to the one developed in the Prince William Sound area after the Exxon Valdez spill.
“When the 1989 spill hit, it was the communities here that had a voice in some of the decisions that were being made,” Parkin said before he left for Spain in December.
Since his arrival, he has distributed information to citizens and spread contact information to local fishing cooperatives. Still, much of the effort has been met with little cooperation from the clean-up coordinators.
“We are here to help in a bad situation and we are doing everything to get the SERVS equipment in the right hands and working when the time comes,” Parkin wrote in an email to the Vanguard last week. “There are many thousands of volunteers working on the beaches hand cleaning the rocks, boulders and sand. The other hands-on workers are army personnel.”
Parkin said he visited two offshore skimming ships, both off-loading highly viscous oil. “They are filthy and in the main harbor with no boom around them.”
There has been considerable reluctance to accept outside help. Parkin said there have been a number of anti-government demonstrations. Conflicts between local fishermen and spill workers have resulted in some deliberately damaged boom.
A large ship is on scene at the Prestige sinking site waiting for the next gob of oil to hit the surface and head inshore.
Since the spill, oil has moved toward French waters and shoreline. However, Parkin said Spanish officials have not considered sending resources to the undamaged shores as a preventative measure.
Putting the SERVS resources to productive use has been difficult and discouraging, according to Delozier, who said the crew was scheduled to travel back to Valdez today (Wednesday). He said the oil spill’s Incident Command Center is nothing like one that might be found in Valdez during a spill drill.
“The Incident Command is very weak in providing information,” said Delozier, who has not seen a single press release since he has been there.
“We have not been aware of what is going on behind the scenes. The Command Center is poorly staffed. There are only a handful of people in there and none of them look very busy. Their command center is not even close to what we do,” he said.
SERVS manager Ed Morgan said sending the crew was a great opportunity for them to receive hands-on training. Expectations were high in terms of teaching the communities how to use the clean-up equipment. However, 40-knot winds and eight-meter seas combined with the communication problems prevented the crew from doing as much as they would have liked.
“(Traveling to Spain) allows us to test the equipment in actual oil conditions,” he said. “We didn’t expect that we wouldn’t be able to do anything for this long.”
Morgan said the weather in Spain poses a greater challenge than might be encountered in Prince William Sound. Currents and winds have driven the waves and much of the oil up onto the thousands of miles of coastline. He said the crew has focused much of its attention on observing the on-shore clean up efforts.
Delozier expressed his discouragement at the lack of communication. He said the crew is ready to come home after spending nearly three weeks in Spain and little time on the water.
“We’ve been motivated and ready to go,” Delozier said. “We have everything we need to do it. We’re trained to do this kind of stuff. We could be doing some things to keep the oil off the beach. Consequently the environment is a mess.”
Vanguard newspaper gave permission to quote whole article
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
Leaving Quoted article
Congratulations to Spain and Alaska - Selecting the best Skimmer Equipment Available...
to Pick up the Oil!
Congratulations for Not adding Chemicals to the dilemma!
And, please, please monitor workers to limit exposure, even to the oil, and also to have appropriate personal protective gear!
"If only" the ship passing by was as good a quality as the Exxon Valdez
Had that ship been transporting oil... you would not have spilled the oil in the first place.
Let's bring back the Exxon Valdez to the oil transport business out of Valdez, Alaska -POST HASTE!
Congress made a mistake to ban the Exxon Valdez from US waters... in the height of emotion
This was the flagship of the Exxon Fleet
The ship was not at fault. The ship should not be penalized *
Music & overview *
But it wasn't the Ship's Fault
Bring Back 
the Exxon Valdez! *
What we learned from the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill was that people should have been kept away from the oil
and NO Dispersants high in 2-butoxyethanol or similar poison should have been added to the water *
Valdez resident:
Margaret Diann Hirsh
PO Box 233
Valdez, Alaska