Oil Officials Admit Valdez Spill Caught Them Off Guard

The state of Alaska characterized the oil industry as all too eager to fight environmental rules but unable to fight a spill, and industry officials Friday acknowledged that they were caught off guard when the Exxon Valdez ran aground on March 24.

The Valdez oil terminal barge assigned to rush equipment to a spill scene was not ready and took 10 hours just to load--although all gear was supposed to be on scene fighting the spill within five hours, according to testimony on the fourth day of a National Transportation Safety Board probe into the wreck of the Exxon Valdez.

When the tanker ran aground, spilling about 11 million gallons of oil in the biggest such accident in U.S. history, a state spill response plan kicked into force. Alaska said the oil industry ignored the plan, but the industry described the plan as merely a “guideline.”

The safety board inquiry focused on the conduct of Alyeska Pipeline Service Co., which operates the 800-mile trans-Alaska oil pipeline for Exxon and six other oil companies and which runs the Valdez oil terminal, the source of one-fourth of U.S. oil production. Alyeska is obligated to respond to a spill near the terminal or in Prince William Sound.

“This was a spill that needed an immediate response,” said state Commissioner of Environmental Conservation Dennis Kelso. “We see this as a failure of performance.

“We did not see the equipment they had promised. There was no booming of the leading edge of the spill or of the tanker. We waited for the equipment on site and were assured that it was en route, and it never showed up,” he said.

Alyeska marine manager Lawrence Shier acknowledged that he told Kelso’s agency the gear would arrive by daylight, when in fact it was still being loaded on the barge.

He conceded that the first spill equipment did not reach the scene for 15 hours, but denied his company was bound by the five-hour response time spelled out in the plan--a plan required by state law, written by Alyeska itself and approved by the Department of Environmental Conservation.

Alyeska’s defense was unveiled for the first time Friday--the company does not consider its oil spill response plan a binding document but rather a guideline, a contention disputed by the state.

Alyeska’s William Howitt said: “The spill plan does not require Alyeska to have the barge loaded.”

State officials said that is like having a fire engine unloaded and unprepared for a fire.

Kelso said top Alyeska officials have fought air and water pollution controls at the Valdez terminal and resisted spill contingency planning “in a long history of challenges to our authority to require a stronger plan.”

In Washington, D.C., meanwhile, the main lobbying group for the major U.S. oil companies, seeking to blunt public criticism of Exxon Corp.’s handling of the Alaska oil spill, said Friday that the company should not be faulted for the slow pace of cleanup.

“The cleanup moves slowly because it is based upon environmental and ecological considerations,” said Charles J. DiBona, president of the American Petroleum Institute.

DiBona sought to portray the Exxon effort as being especially sensitive to the possibility that the cleanup itself could do further damage to the area’s wildlife.

In a bid to deflect some of the criticism from Exxon, DiBona repeatedly stressed that the company was committed to spending as much money as necessary to clean the spill completely, even if it had to return to the scene next spring.