Is Alaska prepared for a big oil spill?

May 7, 2010 13:12

Petroleum News checks on state’s spill equipment, contingency planning

In the latest issue of Petroleum News, released on line today, senior staff writer Alan Bailey interviews an official with the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, the state agency with jurisdiction over oil spill contingency planning on state land and waters.

Bailey was looking to find out whether Alaska was prepared for a major oil spill and also to see if there were any lessons to be learned from the recent blowout BP had in the Gulf of Mexico.

It’s a good read.

If you’d like to comment on the article, please scroll down to our comments section and join in the conversation.

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4 Comments for "Is Alaska prepared for a big oil spill?"

The following are comments from our readers. They do not represent the view of Greening of Oil or its owner.

excellent report. The questions this piece answers are on everyone's mind.

Thomas | May 6, 2010 19:04 | Report Abuse

Do you know it was a DEC commissioner in 1989 who stopped Exxon from burning the spilled oil from the Exxon Valdez tanker? That would have been the end of the oil. The next day a storm hit and the oil was dispersed, making it impossible to burn and impossible to really clean up. I hope Alaska's DEC commissioner under the current governor isn't such a wimp.

keep-pumping | May 7, 2010 20:18 | Report Abuse

The in-situ burning on the Exxon Valdez was stopped after two test burns because of two reasons: complaints of smoke and air quality from Tatitlek, and the fact that the fire boom in use back then was only good for a single burn and there was only enough fire boom to burn 2-5% of the spill. It was decided to concentrate resources in other, more effective countermeasures.

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Is Alaska prepared for a big oil spill?

Petroleum News checks on state’s spill equipment, contingency planning

4 Comments for "Is Alaska prepared for a big oil spill?"

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