Port Of Valdez News

On March 24. 1989, the single-hull tanker Exxon Valdez was departing the Port of Valdez, Alaska with a full load of North Slope crude oil (approximately 1.26 million barrels) destined for Long Beach when it grounded on Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound. The resulting oil spill (approximately 258,000 barrels), while not the largest in US history, was clearly the most important. It engendered much litigation. Public concern over the spill led directly to enactment of the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA 90)…

A mariner was medevaced by a U.S. Coast Guard Station Valdez, Alaska, boatcrew and a Valdez Fire Department emergency medical technician from the Valdez Narrows near Valdez, Tuesday morning.   The station’s 45-foot Response Boat-Medium crew and a local EMT transferred the mariner to the Port of Valdez where Valdez Fire Department transferred him to Providence Valdez Medical Center for further care.   Watchstanders from Coast Guard Sector Anchorage command center received a report from the 45-foot fishing vessel Newfie Adventure that the man was experiencing symptoms of an allergic reaction. Watchstanders directed the launch of a station RB-M and contacted Valdez Fire Department for assistance.   Weather on scene was reported as calm winds and calm seas.

No Alaskan crude oil has been exported outside of the United States since 2004. Genscape Vesseltracker monitoring data showed that a cargo of Alaskan North Slope crude was loaded Sept. 26 at the Alaskan port of Valdez for delivery into the South Korean refining center of Yeosu, says a Genscape blog post. The U.S.-flagged tanker, Polar Discovery, is reported to have sailed from the ANS export terminal at Valdez, Alaska, for east Asia. Yeosu is home to a GS Caltex-operated 775,000 bpd refinery, the world’s fourth largest. The Polar Discovery is expected to arrive at Yeosu on October 10, according to Vesseltracker. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, no Alaskan crude oil has been exported outside of the United States since 2004.

The United States Coast Guard informs that it has recognized ConocoPhillips subsidiary Polar Tankers, Inc. with the Rear Admiral William M. Benkert Osprey Award for Environmental Excellence. Vice Admiral Peter Neffenger, the USCG 29th Vice Commandant, presented the award at the American Petroleum Institute Tanker Conference. The Benkert awards were created to recognize outstanding achievements in marine environmental protection that go beyond compliance with industry and regulatory standards. A committee reviews and scores award applications submitted biennially by maritime operators. The Osprey-level Benkert award is the highest environmental award given by the USCG. “ConocoPhillips is honored to accept this prestigious maritime award from the U.S.

It is time for the global maritime industry to push development of Trans Arctic Shipping Routes (TASR) and port facilities along Alaska’s northern coast. Not only for shipping goods from the Pacific to Atlantic and vice versa, but specifically to facilitate development of specialized ports for LNG exports from Alaska to global markets. Alaska has a limited maritime community mostly in the south: Southeast Alaska is a maritime community; South Central, Valdez, The Kenai Peninsula and Anchorage much less so; Southwest Alaska and Aleutians have fishing fleets and the Western, North Slope coasts and, the Interior have only marginal connections to large scale maritime activities. Nearly all Alaska’s vast energy resources, LNG and coal, are on the North Slope.

The Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS) has announced that its workforce has achieved a major safety milestone: 10 million hours worked without an OSHA Day Away From Work Case (DAFWC). Of those hours, Crowley contributed towards working 20 percent of them, or 2 million hours, safely. This means that since June 2009, no TAPS worker, including the more than 225 Crowley employees, has been injured to the extent that they missed a day of work. For more than 30 years Crowley has provided tanker escort, response ship assist and vessel operations for TAPS operator Alyeska Pipeline Services Co.

The Coast Guard Cutter Sycamore crew sets one of two security zone buoys marking the restricted navigational area the Coast Guard patrols helping to protect the Trans Alaska pipeline terminal in the port of Valdez Thursday, Jan. 6, 2011. The Sycamore is a 225-foot buoy tender homeported in Cordova, Alaska, and is responsible for helping maintain 130 aids to navigation in Alaska. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Ensign Carla Geyer.

Coast Guard Vice Adm. Sally Brice-O'Hara, Coast Guard vice commandant and Alice Hill, senior counselor to the secretary of Homeland Security, tour the port of Valdez aboard a Coast Guard Station Valdez response boat small Sept. 3, 2010. Brice-O'Hara and Hill visited Valdez as part of a Department of Homeland Security familiarization visit to Alaska. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 1st Class David Mosley

The Crowley tugboat Pathfinder, which grounded the night of Dec. 23 on Bligh Reefin Alaska, was stabilized on Dec. 25, at anchor near Busby Island surrounded by oil spill containment boom. A salvage team from TITAN Salvage has arrived at the scene and is evaluating the damage to the tug in preparation for lightering the remaining diesel fuel from two ruptured tanks to another vessel. A light sheen of diesel fuel has been observed outside the boom containment area and is being recovered with skimmers and absorbents. No impacts to wildlife have been observed or reported.

A high-tech infrared camera system now monitors the port of Valdez and vessels transiting Prince William Sound. This Infrared maritime surveillance system supplements the extensive maritime and land-based homeland security measures put in to action in Valdez and around the nation following the tragic events of Sept. 11, 2001. Culminating a two-year effort by the Valdez port security committee, last week Scientific Applications International Corporation (SAIC) put the finishing touches on and energized a state-of-the-art infrared camera port security surveillance system covering the port of Valdez and the trans-Alaska pipeline oil tankers transiting Prince William Sound.

Lockheed Martin completed key milestones for the U.S. Coast Guard's Ports and Waterways Safety System (PAWSS), enhancing safety in New York Harbor and other major waterways. The five milestones involved Vessel Traffic Service (VTS) and Automatic Identification System (AIS) work for the Port of New York and New Jersey, Port of New Orleans, Port of Valdez, AK, Port of Houston and Galveston, and Sault Ste. Marie, MI. The PAWSS system enables the Coast Guard to pay closer attention to vessels requiring more detailed evaluation through the use of radar, AIS, radio communications, closed circuit television and infrared cameras. Initially designed to support the Coast Guard's maritime safety and environmental protection mission…

Rozema Boat Works in Mount Vernon, Wash., recently added two new vessels to the harsh environment of Alaska when it sent twin boom boats to Aleyska Pipeline Service Co. The 31-ft aluminum boats are used at the Port of Valdez, Alaska to place and remove oil containment boom around tankers loading oil. "That's a pretty demanding place for workboats up there," said Rozema. Rozema's all-aluminum boom boat is designed not just to work boom, but also to function as a spill response vessel in time of need. Featuring a planing hull form, the Rozema boats are 31 ft. long with a beam of 13 ft., and a draft of 3.5 ft. Each is powered by a pair of Cummins 280B diesels, providing a total of 560 hp to drive twin four-blade, 28-in.

The Juneau Branch of the American Society of Engineers (ASCE) and the Juneau Chapter of the Alaska Society of Professional Engineers (ASPE) announced this year’s winner as Coast Guard Commander Virginia Holtman-Bell during their Feb. 22 Engineer’s Week Banquet and awards ceremony. The ASCE and ASPE chose Holtzman-Bell for the honors under the pretenses of two separate categories. They chose her for her leadership and vision as Coast Guard Civil Engineering Unit Juneau’s (CEU) commanding officer. Her position requires her to lead a 29-member team of civilian and military engineers whose efforts helped the team accomplish more than 50 civil engineering projects exceeding a value of 13 million dollars.

A fishing ship that sank last week and is leaking diesel fuel has caused the biggest spill in Alaska's Prince William Sound since the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster, posing a threat to the area's wildlife, state environmental officials said. The Seattle-based Windy Bay was loaded with about 35,000 gallons (133,000 liters) of diesel fuel when it struck a rock and sank on Saturday in the northern part of the sound about 40 miles (65 km) southwest of the port of Valdez. The spill was tiny compared with the 11 million gallons (40 million liters) of crude oil dumped by the Exxon Valdez when it ran aground on a reef outside Valdez in 1989, polluting miles (km) of coastline.

Lockheed Martin Ocean, Radar & Sensor Systems (OR&SS) has completed final acceptance testing of its Vessel Traffic Management System (VTMS) in Valdez, Alaska. The project, valued at $1.2 million, will assist the USCG in helping to ensure safe passage for oil tanker ships passing through Prince William Sound into the Port of Valdez Bay to take on oil pumped from the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. USCG concerns about Y2K compliance along with Prince William Sound's notoriety were equally important reasons for the initial OR&SS system to be put in place this year. The USCG plans to continue upgrading the capability of the Prince William Sound VTMS next year.