More on Chevron Tank Farm
25 03 2009I’ve written a piece just for Huffington Post on Chevron’s tank farm:
Feel free to Buzz it Up, and leave comments.
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March 25th, 2009 at 5:46 PM
here are a few things to look at.
http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/hazards/lahar/ruiz.php
http://www.scientificblogging.com/news/geologists_witness_unique_volcanic_mudflow
http://www.tulane.edu/~sanelson/geol204/volhaz&pred.htm
http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Glossary/Lahars/description_lahars.html
http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Volcanoes/Rainier/Maps/osceola_map.html
http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Imgs/Gif/Rainier/OFR95-642/rainier_mudflows.gif
March 25th, 2009 at 6:12 PM
TOTALLY OT OT
I finally got an update posted on my trip to the Sustainable Agriculture Workshop last week in Fairbanks. (It took a little time to thaw the fingers for typing:-))
I learned so much I can’t get it all in one update. More will follow.
Thanks to all who help send me.
We will be working to get some ideas out to both Ann’s and my area of the state.
http://anonymousbloggers.wordpress.com/
Also THANKS for all the support on the Chinook By-Catch issue. We got 19 PAGES of COMMENTS and SUPPORT submitted today to the committee.
We will be updating you after they meet the first week of April.
Again thanks so much,
Victoria B
Ugashik, AK
victoria@anonymousbloggers.com
March 25th, 2009 at 6:30 PM
@ CherryTheTartNo Gravatar (16:00:50) :
Hello Everyone. I live in Philadelphia PA. I love reading Mudflats. Thank you for this good reporting.
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Hello Cherry ~ from the city of brotherly love!
I hope that you’ve been wearin’ your boots, for we’ve been traipsing through a lotta mud lately….and some poo, too! And I agree; the excellent reporting here is addictive, indeed!
Welcome.
March 25th, 2009 at 6:38 PM
Just a quick back of the envelope calculation on the transportability of that much crude. It comes out to ~150,000 metric tonnes of oil. That could be transported by two moderate size 100,000 DWT tankers or one larger and one smaller tanker. As a rule oil companies do not own tankers but charter them (liability anyone? Exxon Valdez) so there is no easy way to know what kind of tanker capacity is available within easy reach of the terminal. Presumably there are a few “empties” lined up heading for Valdez so they could be contracted if all parties were to cooperate.
Just my opinions but will offer the following anyway. It seems like the main responsibility here falls on the State of Alaska, that’s a pity, because SP (the most knowledgeable person in the country on energy), seems to be asleep at the switch. Three full days have passed since this activity began and so far as I know, nothing has come out of the State Gov. Action is of paramount importance at this time, because it is completely unpredictable whether or not a bigger and more destructive eruption will occur soon, later in the cycle, or not at all. To gamble that nothing worse is going to happen would be, to put it frankly, nuts. I think the USGS could provide some insight into this issue since the record of past Lahars on the Drift river might have been scrutinized by them. Then again, given their budget and priorities, I doubt it.
I’m not a lawyer so I can’t offer any speculation about how governments at any level might be able to “motivate” Chevron and who ever else ultimately gets involved, to move quickly and with alacrity.
That is the criteria they should be held to. If they don’t act soon, they will be obfuscating. This problem is really pretty simple, move the oil.
March 25th, 2009 at 6:42 PM
AKM, I was on my break at work, and I decided to check my websites on my phone, and I came across your response to SP’s question about carharts, school team…. I swear I laughed for hours. You made my day. That reply about the prostitute was priceless. I also read your article on HuffPo. It was a great article! Love your posts.
March 25th, 2009 at 8:38 PM
Krubozumo Nyankoye (18:38:47) :
We have a hard time pinning down were SP is. She might be out sledding with Todd on there Arctic Cats in matching suits, selling girl scout cookies, sun tanning, shooting a few wolfs, looking for cracks in doors, or working on another book deal in her comfortable home office. She has a PR department that tells us she likes to take care of her people 24/7/365. But then again she told those people what to say.
Yet when there is a need for leadership on critical issues, or pending environmental disasters which would economically cripple are fishing and tourist industry in south central Alaska, she is most likely waiting for higher powers to lead the way.
This is the era of the, ” End of Times” , accounting to her scary spiritual realm, which guides her “Magical Thinking Political Realm”. So we here at the mudflates use humor to hide are fears.
So, AKM among many other services, has become a sounding board for aware people that are scared with the fact that we have a, Governor In Name Only (GINO) for the state of Alaska.
We are scared with this administration in power.
March 25th, 2009 at 8:46 PM
Great article, very incisive, right on point. We need to try to ’splain to Chevron management that when this (hope it doesn’t happen at all) case hits the SCOTUS in fifteen years, there might be several different different Justices.
We also need to press for an investigation into how the EPA ever cleared an oil terminal that stands between an active volcano and a major fishery.
Sometimes I think we deserve to become extinct.
March 25th, 2009 at 8:55 PM
OK, Inquiring minds need to know:
Question 1: Are oil tankers moving on Cook Inlet or is it still frozen over? I was looking for fly over maps but couldn’t tell.
Question 2: How does the oil get into the tanks and have they stoped putting oil into tanks? Since they have evacuated people at the tank farm who is not in charge of monitoring what is happening at the site?
Question 3: If they have stopped flow into tanks, where are they putting it now?
March 25th, 2009 at 8:57 PM
Great article on HuffPost AKM. One of your best articles IMHO. I love how you ever so subtly embedded info about how GINO does not take responsibility in times of crisis. Someone wrote that this is GINO’s “Katrina” – hell no, Emmonak was, and her score on that? FAIL.
March 25th, 2009 at 8:59 PM
WooHoo! Great job, AKM!
March 25th, 2009 at 10:09 PM
this is off topic, but i’m hoping someone will know where i can get hold of a transcript of la palin’s lincoln day speech.
the contents are being quoted all over the place and it sounds hilarious (though not in the way she intended). i need it for a creative endeavor i’m thinking about.
anyone know where i can find it, do me the kind favor of leaving me a note in any comment thread in my blog. thanks!
March 25th, 2009 at 10:15 PM
@UgaVic (18:12:28) :
TOTALLY OT OT
I finally got an update posted on my trip to the Sustainable Agriculture Workshop
Also THANKS for all the support on the Chinook By-Catch issue. We got 19 PAGES of COMMENTS and SUPPORT submitted today to the committee.
Victoria B
Ugashik, AK
============
Vic – After these past few days of discussing relatively depressing–albeit important–matters, your news here is so well-timed, and ABSOLUTELY JUST WHAT WE ALL NEEDED! (I can sorta understand why MarthaUYS left to hang around with you ……)
Wa-Hooooo !!!!!! Way to go!
March 25th, 2009 at 10:19 PM
@Krubozumo:
Your input on this subject is illuminating and priceless. Thank you for taking the time to spell it out for us. I’ve learned a lot from your posts.
March 25th, 2009 at 10:19 PM
I made a comment on possible logistics of getting that oil out of there on the last thread. Here it is again:
No roads to anywhere I don’t think, so no trucks. I believe that the oil would all have to be pumped out into tanker ships and moved on out of there. Could be difficult to do that, since the ash would affect ship engines as much as it would truck and airplane engines. NOT that I’m at all supporting the fact that this facility is at the base of an active volcano or suggesting that they were smart to leave the oil there; I’m just pointing out that it may, actually, be difficult to move it at this juncture.
March 25th, 2009 at 10:39 PM
Great Ariticle AKM !
Here is another email address for Chevron.
comment@chevron.com
Does anyone know what the original environmental impact study, that was most likely required to be done before this tank farm was build, said about the safety of this Tank Farm being located beneth a volcano?
Has Pretty Pretty Princess Palin made any public comment about this?
Here is a better question, does the Governor even KNOW that there is a volcano errupting that she can see from her house?
March 25th, 2009 at 10:48 PM
Lance..I really like Georgia peach..it’s a keeper
March 25th, 2009 at 11:29 PM
new good night post …
March 25th, 2009 at 11:51 PM
A hella article, AKM. Thanks for that.
I posted this on the last thread, good to see so many on the same page.
Repost!
This does not bode well. What a coincidence that another oil disaster is looming so near to the Valdez anniversary.
I don’t think people are going to wait 20 years of ‘court’ this time around.
Realistically, don’t expect the Governor to do anything, again. A human disaster was looming in the Yukon Delta villages months and months ago and if it wasn’t for bloggers sending food and money for fuel, those people wouldn’t make it to spring.
The Alaskan Governor did nothing to avert that disaster and when goaded into doing something, brought cookies and evangelicals. There was no declaration of an emergency, no state airlift of provisions — nothing. Yet, it was all in her power to organize something more than a photo shoot.
Now tell me what’s so different with this issue?
She isn’t going to do squat. She actually believes that taking action in times of crises reflects poorly on her. It’s sad, but true. In this case, there are the oil companies she wants to inveigle. oops, conflicted much?
Guess we’ll have to do it ourselves, once again. Oh it’ll embarrass the hell out of her and she’ll do anything to thwart taking some concrete preventative measures ensuring that those oil tanks don’t rupture and flood everything in oil.
That oil has to be moved, immediately, by all means necessary, no ands ifs or buts or alsos. If the Pompeiian’s had volcano detection, would they have evacuated the city? Knowing of imminent danger is one thing, doing something about it is another.
They say the dinosaur became extinct because of a radical change in climate.
The human race may become extinct when we can’t live off the polluted land anymore. Future archeologists won’t guess that it were the laws and money which lead to the extinction.
Praying things will work out just doesn’t cut it, Palin. Now move it or face your recall, you haven’t been doing your job, for all of the people of Alaska.
March 26th, 2009 at 4:17 AM
karen marie, I think it was at Diva’s site that I found one of the videos of GINO at the Lincoln dinner, and she provided links to the rest of the speech. The one on Diva’s site looks like she’s alternately ready to cry and on the verge of snarling and spitting. Whacko.
March 26th, 2009 at 8:40 AM
T e a m SP made it to huffpost….. Please go and buzz the story up and write a response. This is such an important issue.
March 26th, 2009 at 9:36 AM
I have a couple questions and haven’t seen any information – how did the oil get to the holding tanks? Any pipelines in the area? Transported all by tankers? Trucks? Are the roadways even passable now? The oil is obviously taken out by tankers but how did it get there? My other comment about why they were built there in the first place – follow the money, I’m sure Ted Stevens had something to do with it and a few other corrupt officials. Bend a few rules, hand out a few tax breaks, who cares about environmental concerns about a slumbering volcano, the ring of fire, active fault lines … so what if there was warnings in ‘89 …
March 28th, 2009 at 4:53 PM
[...] UPDATE (3/26/09): Strangelet makes this comment in this thread over at Mudflats. We also need to press for an investigation into how the EPA ever cleared an oil [...]