Ports Undertake Largest Oil Spill Exercise in U.S. History

For years, officials at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach have conducted drills on how to clean up oil spills at sea. But the drill that unfolded Tuesday morning -- which will continue today and Thursday -- tested port officials and hundreds of specialists from government and private industry.

By the time this drill is done, the exercise will have involved more than 2,000 people working on land, sea and in the air who gathered to respond to two disaster scenarios -- oil spills off the coasts of Los Angeles and San Diego. The drill, which is continuing without break, cost $2.5 million to stage.

Participating in such a simulation for the first time were the Department of Homeland Security and Mexico, whose coastline could be affected by a San Diego oil spill.

No oil was actually spread in coastal waters, but officials called it the largest multi-agency oil spill exercise in U.S. history.

Among the agencies participating were the California Department of Fish and Game and the Coast Guard. The oil industry was represented, in part, by the American Petroleum Institute.

The drill began at 5 a.m., when calls went out informing participants -- who knew a drill was coming Tuesday but not when -- of the day’s scenario: A tanker carrying Arabian crude oil exploded off the coast of Long Beach at 4 a.m. At noon more “news” was announced: Two ships collided off San Diego, releasing 420,000 gallons of fuel oil.

The day’s task: Figure out how to fight two clean-up battles at once.

By Tuesday afternoon, the command center at Terminal Island buzzed with activity. Working in an open warehouse, port officials huddled in groups, grasping clipboards. Others worked at tables covered with papers, maps and laptops. Still others tacked diagrams and maps onto a giant display wall detailing the latest news and updates under headings such as “salvage status” and “resources at risk.”

Three miles offshore, two recovery vessels flanked by smaller fast-response boats had deployed canvas flotation devices, called booms, meant to corral the oil. A bright yellow airplane swooped down and released a spray of water to simulate the release of a chemical used to neutralize oil.

By midday, federal officials in Los Alamitos were trying to coordinate the two efforts. And that, said fish and game spokeswoman Dana Michaels, was exactly the point. The aim was to see how federal authorities “can support local responders when we get overwhelmed.”

Agencies began simulating events such as this after the Exxon Valdez spill off the Alaskan coast in 1989, which released 11 million gallons of crude oil.