Drift River Tank Farm Update – Status is Uncertain.
26 03 2009Two more large eruptions of Mt. Redoubt volcano today, have caused a mudflow in Drift River, the river that flows right next to the Chevron tank farm at the base of the volcano. Flows of mud, ice and volcanic debris that accompany eruptions of this type are called “lahars,” and are capable of inflicting massive damage to structures in their wake.
The Drift River oil terminal was evacuated Monday after Redoubt’s first series of eruptions, but crews have made at least two visits to the site since then. One was on hand this morning during a lull in eruptions, according to Cook Inlet Pipeline Co. spokeswoman Lana Johnson. As soon as the volcano observatory upgraded its aviation advisory from orange to red, “they promptly left,” she said in an e-mail message.
The eruption that occurred around 9:30 this morning resulted in an ash cloud that reached 65,000 feet into the atmosphere, higher than any ash cloud so far. The Alaska Volcano Observatory research hut located 7 miles north of the river has experienced ash falls of more than two inches.
All Alaskan Airlines flights into and out of Anchorage have been cancelled.
This is from the latest update on the Chevron site:
Cook Inlet Pipeline Company also intends to conduct a full inspection of the protective dike and containment system as soon as it is practical to ensure the structural integrity of the system.
We understand how important our role is in keeping the oil flowing for the benefit of the residents of Southcentral Alaska. Our goal is to safely resume operations as quickly as possible.
If only their goal would have been to protect the waters of Cook Inlet. Right now, we’re told that in order to drain the tanks, the special equipment would need to be flown in, and that’s just too dangerous right now.
So why was this special equipment not flown in a month ago, when the volcano began to show signs that eruptions were imminent? Because that is neither the priority of Chevron, nor the governor.
March 26th, 2009 at 4:19 PM
AKM–I love mudflats and your stories–you are truly gifted and I am thankful for what you have created. I wanted to mention one thing that is interesting. You have mentioned that GINO hasnot made any official announcement or press release regarding Mt. Redoubt on the state website. She has however made a news release about Mt. Redoubt on SarahPac. That is clearly another illustration of who she is trying to communication with and it is certainly –NOT ALASKANS.
Keep up the good work!!!
March 26th, 2009 at 4:25 PM
Death spiral! Pull up! Pull up! Queen GINO, she’s gonna blow! Help!
I watched a Gordon Ramsey episode where he and a celebrity dude were tossing a coin about who would eat the still beating chunk of a heart of an eel. Picture the celebrity tossing back the still beating chunk of GINO’s heart, with a swig of water. “Not bad!”
Sorry. How about my recipe for Chili Relleno Casserole? (dinner tonight)
A couple of cans of roasted green chilis
some fat slices of jack or jalapeno jack cheese
beaten eggs with some cumin and salt and pepper
salsa
put slices of cheese inside green chili
pour beaten seasoned egg over stuffed chilis
throw a little salsa on top
bake until puffy
top with a bit of shredded lettuce and/or cilantro
eat
March 26th, 2009 at 4:28 PM
I got the original recipe from big sis, Alaska Pi. I ad lib a lot, but the core value of recipe remains. good with beer.
March 26th, 2009 at 4:49 PM
womanwithsardinecanNo Gravatar (16:25:28) :
Picture the celebrity tossing back the still beating chunk of GINO’s heart, with a swig of water. “Not bad!”
Sorry. How about my recipe for Chili Relleno Casserole? (dinner tonight)
A couple of cans of roasted green chilis
some fat slices of jack or jalapeno jack cheese
beaten eggs with some cumin and salt and pepper
salsa
put slices of cheese inside green chili
pour beaten seasoned egg over stuffed chilis
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I think I will pass on GINO’s beating servant’s heart,lol but
YUM, thanks for the chili relleno recipe!
March 26th, 2009 at 6:00 PM
honestyinGovNo Gravatar (15:49:10) :
FYI,
CNN’s Rick Sanchez did cover the Volcano story a little. Mostly poking fun at Bobby Jindal angle though. Not so much on GINO. I posted this comment to the earliest thread before the new ones today. I will re-paste my comments. I called (and emailed )my 2 Senators , my Governor, AND Your GINO. Her Office phone call was the most interesting…. as you can read.
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honestyinGovNo Gravatar (10:28:12) :
As a follow-up to my (01:10:28) post. I made a phone call to Chevron last night. This morning after hearing there were more eruptions I talked to people in both Senator Boxers office and well as speaking to someone in Gov. Schwarzenegger Office saying nothing was being done based on the internet stories coming from people on the ground in AK. I asked them to please ‘take action ‘.
My very LAST phone call was actually to your GINO.. the number was posted under the story.
Your Gov’s call was the MOST interesting. I told my story to the first operator. I was put on hold for about a minute. When someone picked up again it was a brand new person… much younger. Since I was talking to a NEW person I asked if I needed to start all over with my Question..? I repeated to the second person what I said before. Her attitude to me was (a little snippy )…”We are working on it.” Rather than take it seriously she was all defensive and wanted to blow me off..”we are working on it”
The cavalier attitude and/or defensive posture was totally different than the call to both my Senator or Governor’s Office. I guess this is that ‘folksy’ way your GINO does business and operates…. Yu.. betcha.
I do feel sorry for Alaskans.
———–
Way cool! I’m impressed at your determination! Of course, the result was expected…
March 26th, 2009 at 6:00 PM
Trying to get back on topic and posting with a little haste because I have an appointment to make.
I read the press release on the CIPL site and found at least a couple of things a bit dubious. One that caught my eye was the statement that there were ~74,000 barrels in both tanks… that implies 148,000 barrels. Which is it?
Regarding the “special equipment” claim, I suspect but cannot be sure that would be an oil tanker. Or maybe two as previously mentioned. This is a terminal for a pipeline, the oil comes in from the producers is loaded aboard tankers and shipped to refineries.
Keeping a quantity of oil in the two up stream tanks is a plausible tactic ni the context of ordinary floods. The rationale I assume, is that the mass of the oil in the tank makes it much more resistant to the effect of water pressure from a flood if the containment berm is breached. I am skeptical, however, that this logic applies in this case. A major Lahar on the drift river would not be anything like an ordinary flood. The erosive and hence the destructive effect of any “flow” depends on its own mass, its velocity, and the cross sectional area of the surfaces on which it acts among other things, so roughly the fourth power. I would welcome the input of any hydrologist to address these concerns as I am not one, but the principles seem pretty clear to me.
How much oil is produced from Cook Inlet and how would that impact the local economy if its production was suspened for a few months?
Finally I think some clarification needs to be made with respect to what is being talked about here in terms of the “saftey infrastructure” for this tank farm. Just by looking at the photographs is appears obvious that the main containment berm is just that, a containment berm. It is built at right angles to the direction of flow of the Drift river. So the point is, it was designed to KEEP OIL IN. A simple volumetric calculation can determine if it was adequate to that specification and it probably was. However, that does not equate to keeping floods of catostrophic proportions, or massive Lahars from the melting of a nearly entire glacier, OUT.
If the relatively minor eruptions that have occurred so far have breached the containment dikes by overflow, what would be the effect of an eruption that produced 100 times the volume of Lahar material? While it is true that the terminal is built on the Drift river delta and the force of the Lahar and its primary direction would be dissapated somewhat, it is hard to imagine how a flow of dense material 50 meters high would not wipe the tank farm off the map.
One point to conclude. The rationale for keeping two tanks with enough oil to resist ordinary flooding, seems to be to preserve the tank farm. It has nothing to do with the worst case scenario. IOW the operating companies appear to be readily able to accept the possibility that the whole tank farm could be destroyed by a major event, and along with it the entire Cook Inlet fisheries, etc. etc. but they are BETTING, that no such scenario will occur.
Don’t you love it when other people can gamble away your future?
I still think they should take extraordinary measures to move the oil now.
Granted they have minimized the amount of oil there, but that is lip service. Oil pollution is insidious and ubiquitous.
Now I have to go….
March 26th, 2009 at 7:33 PM
OH. MY. GOD.
March 26th, 2009 at 8:33 PM
Come on, Bloggers. . . Sarah HAS spoken on the tank farm. “Spill, Baby, Spill.”
March 26th, 2009 at 8:40 PM
[...] Volcanic Mudflows threaten crude oil tanks By CityKid I’ts ironic that only a few days after the 20th anniversary of The Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound a new environmental disaster may be looming on the Alaskan horizon. This time it’s a potential crude oil spill into Cook Inlet. The press has only recently started paying attention to peril of the tank farm, I suspect due in part to the mention of the potential for disaster by Alaska blogger AKMuckraker at Huffingtonpost and at Mudflats (here and here) [...]
March 26th, 2009 at 8:58 PM
The following website, on the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation site, gives you some more information regarding spill response planning for Drift River, natural resources at risk in the area, etc.
http://www.dec.state.ak.us/SPAR/perp/response/sum_fy09/090324201/090324201_index.htm
At this point it appears they are putting out one situation report per day. And they have links to natural resource maps, etc. Some of you might find this to be interesting reading.
They do this for most moderate to big spills (and potential spills). Not just this (potential) spill.
March 27th, 2009 at 7:09 AM
Hi all, A new poster here, but a long time lurker. Be nice
Regarding the tank farm… Should a disaster happen and the tanks are breached, ( God forbid )
Would that make the price per barrel of oil go up ?
Because just maybe, that is what GINO is hoping for ( stop the flow of oil long enough ) hence being back in line with her budget.
There is hardly nothing i would put past her.
JMO but something i was pondering.
March 27th, 2009 at 9:33 AM
Corine56 (07:09:07) :
Hi all, A new poster here, but a long time lurker. Be nice
Regarding the tank farm… Should a disaster happen and the tanks are breached, ( God forbid )
Would that make the price per barrel of oil go up ?
Because just maybe, that is what GINO is hoping for ( stop the flow of oil long enough ) hence being back in line with her budget.
There is hardly nothing i would put past her.
JMO but something i was pondering.
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Hi Corine56! Welcome.
I kind of got the impression that the oil is for use in Alaska, which would only make the price of oil go up in Alaska — so not likely to help GINO with voters at home.
Also, although this is a lot of oil in the context of a spill, I don’t think this is a lot of oil in the context of oil production. I believe this amount is less than a single day’s production for the State.
SMR — help me out here!