The Prince William Sound Regional Citizens’ Advisory Council said in a Monday letter that it has “become aware of serious safety and environmental concerns” related to the effort to remove snow from oil tanks at the Valdez Marine Terminal.
Each of the 14 crude oil storage tanks in the Valdez Marine Terminal’s east tank farm is 62 feet tall, and 1 acre wide, photographed on Feb. 15, 2016.
She said Alyeska stopped the work over the weekend to address contractors’ concerns. But the company has not yet determined how it will respond to the council’s request to stop all snow removal work. Valdez is one of Alaska’s snowiest communities, and while Alyeska has largely blamed its tank problems on unusually high late winter snowfall, accumulations are still far below record levels, according to federal data.
The council’s letter, obtained by the Daily News, lists six specific concerns about Alyeska’s management of the snow problem. They include the risk of explosion from leaking gases, the potential for contractors’ footwear to generate sparks, a faulty emergency evacuation system, inconsistent use of respirators and unreliable vapor detection equipment.
There are 14 storage tanks at the Valdez terminal, where crude is loaded onto tankers to be shipped to market. Each holds 500,000 barrels, worth some $60 million per tank at current prices. It says, for example, that snow removal crews are not consistently wearing respirators, and they are “only being worn voluntarily if near the vents.” It also says that badges used to measure worker exposure to hydrocarbons are not being read in real time.
“There are some things in here that have occurred,” she said. “But they’re presented without the full context.” Another alarm went off last week after explosive vapors were detected outside the boundary of an earthen berm surrounding the tanks, Beauvais said. But he said the alarm was set at a low level — 10% of the concentration needed for an explosion — and the company says the incident has not been repeated amid increased monitoring.
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