Pathfinder Slams into Bligh Reef Spilling Diesel and Raising Serious Questions
The Christams holiday was not all candy canes and hot cocoa for those in the Prince William Sound area. Late on December 23, in mild conditions, an ice scout tugboat named the Pathfinder slammed in to (wait for it) Bligh Reef, spilling an unknown quantity of diesel fuel into Prince William Sound. Blood ran cold in my household and many others when news came. Bligh Reef was the site of the collision between tanker and rock that resulted in the Exxon Valdez spilling a reported 11 million gallons of crude oil into the Sound in March of 1989. Cleanup crews, local fishermen, and the Coast Guard have been working to monitor and contain the spill which has just resulted in a second uncontained mile-long sheen of diesel that is drifing away from the wounded tug after escaping containment booms.
This is the NOAA chart showing Bligh Reef. You can see the reef clearly marked with a giant light so that it will be noticed in plenty of time by big ships like oil tankers that take a while to correct course. The red arrow points to the light which is indicated by the circle and purple mark. “Fl 4s 59ft” means that the light flashes at 4 second intervals and the tower rises 59 feet above sea level. The notation “RACON” indicates the presence of a radar transponder used to mark maritime navigational hazards. That means it shows up quite clearly on radar.
This second view of the chart gives you the bigger picture. The red arrow indicates the reef, and the purple arrow shows the location of the traffic lane.
“I’m troubled that a spill response vessel, which is mandated by federal law to help ensure safe passage of oil tankers through Prince William Sound, managed to run aground on one of the most well-marked and well-known reefs in the northern hemisphere,” [Senator Mark] Begich said. “At a time when Alaskans are advocating for new oil and gas development, especially in the waters off our coasts, we must demand a higher level of operational competence.”
Yet somehow the tug and its six-person crew managed to recreate in small scale the accident that forever changed the face of the Sound and its inhabitants. The causes of the recent accident are still under investigation, but according to the Anchorage Daily News, alcohol has been ruled out.
Steve Lewis, president of the Prince William Sound Regional Citizens’ Council, an organization created to ensure that we do not forget the lessons of the past, issued a statement that raises some serious questions:
While many of the facts surrounding this grounding are not yet available, it seems at first blush to raise serious questions about the safety of oil industry operations in the Sound, and about how well the painful lessons of the Exxon Valdez spill of 1989 have been learned by today’s mariners. [snip]
Among the questions raised by the Pathfinder grounding:
Why did the crew of the tug not realize their peril, from radar readings, from visual observations, or from basic navigational awareness, in time to avert the accident?
Why did the Coast Guard’s Vessel Traffic Center in Valdez , with its radar systems and other equipment, not detect the danger in time to warn the tug’s crew?
While environmental damage from the spill that resulted from this grounding appears to have been minimal—in considerable part because the product spilled was diesel fuel rather than crude oil—it nevertheless serves as a warning that we can never forget the lessons that the Exxon spill 20 years ago taught Alaskans, the oil industry, and its regulators in Prince William Sound:
* Constant vigilance is the price of safety. In an operation involving the transport of hazardous petroleum products through a beautiful natural environment, there is never a single moment when any individual or organization can relax and assume the system is safe because there hasn’t been an accident lately.
* Backup systems are indispensable, and they need to be in place and operating. The Coast Guard radar center in Valdez is one of the backup systems in the Prince William Sound oil trade, but it does not appear to have been of any assistance in this incident.
* Another backup system involving mitigation of the iceberg risk in Prince William Sound was inoperative at the time of this incident. That system was the iceberg detection radar system that was installed on Reef Island —which overlooks Bligh Reef—several years ago after much expenditure and effort by our council, Alyeska Pipeline Service Co., and the Coast Guard. This system scans westward from Bligh Reef to detect icebergs from Columbia Glacier emerging into the tanker lanes from Columbia Bay—the same function performed by ice scouts like the Pathfinder. Unfortunately, this system has been inoperative since late summer, after a Coast Guard upgrade to its own system on Reef Island took the iceberg detection radar system offline. This radar can detect icebergs in weather too dark or too foggy to permit reliable visual detection by human observers and thus can be a valuable adjunct to ice scout vessels or even make a scouting trip unnecessary if the radar detects very heavy accumulations of icebergs in the tanker lanes, though that was not the case in the Pathfinder grounding. Thus, the council believes it is of paramount importance to restore this system to service and has been working with Alyeska and the Coast Guard to that end.
Our council was set up to make sure that the complacency that allowed the Exxon Valdez disaster to occur never reasserts itself. That is the main reason we have been working so hard to preserve another crucial backup system in Prince William Sound : the system of double escort tugs to escort loaded oil tankers through the Sound. Our group is now lobbying Congress for federal legislation to preserve the double escorts so that, if another tanker should someday go astray and head for Bligh Reef, backup will be close at hand to prevent another catastrophe like the one in 1989.
The task at hand now, is to safely empty the two compromised tanks which held more than 33,000 gallons of diesel, and move the tug to safe harbor. The next task is to get some questions answered, and re-examine our preparedness to deal with catastrophe both in the sound, and in Cook Inlet.
[For photos of the spill scene click HERE]
So, will Sarah now tweet “Drill, Baby, Spill”?
Spill, Baby, Spill. So sad to hear about this and the other spills in AK.
Good grief, this is pathetic and very concerning, especially when you consider the aging BP pipeline and many recent spills. These companies MUST be made to pay for the highest quality safety measures possible. They will milk a system to the bottom dollar then abandon and move on to the next money maker. Very unethical and very irresponsible. They simply do not care. Their bottom line is THE main priority.
And yeah, no wonder it bothers Begich, kinda hard to develop resources when you can’t prove it can be done responsibly. Obviously, these sort of things are proof of why we have concerns over environmental risks and developing resources. Greed = Stupidity
palin? do you believe in signs? then HEED this one! …maybe putting planet over greed isn’t such a bad idea…the shame of it all.
awww…I lost my red avatar.
found it
Gues$ who (via FB) blames Obama for Bligh Reef being in the way of reel ‘murrica in progressin’ Energy to hungry, hungry markets in 4… 3… 2…
of all her FB idiot comments and every other idiot comment she’s ever made…when is this all going to catch up with her? it’s almost as if she’s supernatural.
I know zip about tankers and marine operations, BUT… reading AKM’s post made me wonder something. If a tug CAN hit the reef (it did), a tanker COULD hit the reef (see tug), so wouldn’t if be a good idea to HALT tanker traffic until the cause of the tug accident is determined.
Sorry, if this too novice a question. (I can’t believe I’m really going to push the “submit comment” button on this and probably embarass myself.)
Lainey, the press are allowing this. I do agree with you. She gives them clicks on the tubes and they let her spout her rubbish. It is the American media who are doing this. It would not be tolerated in Europe.
Drill baby Drill! BTW, US refineries are CLOSING due to decreased demand.
http://www.tampabay.com/incoming/chilly-climate-for-oil-refiners-as-us-demand-dips/1061132
The Coast Guard and the news reports are trying to downplay the spill by implying that because this wasn’t crude oil, rather diesel fuel, which will evenutally dissapate, there wasn’t as much harm to the environment.
While that is true on at face value, I would like to remind everyone that dillution is NOT the solution to pollution. Diesel fuel is a complex hydro-carbon whose chemical structure contains benzene rings, which causes cancer. So, yes, damage to the environment has occurred, we just don’t have the wherewithal to determine exactly the exent of it.
If you are concerned with the oversite of the feds, state, and the RCAC in this incident, and the continued water quality of Prince William Sound, please consider assisting the efforts of Prince William SoundKeeper. http://www.pwsoundkeeper.org
@Irishgirl: It is the American media who are doing this. It would not be tolerated in Europe.
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it’s shameful isn’t it? we should take a lesson from Europe then…she needs to be stopped, and it’s not what they meant when they said freedom of speech…it’s not freedom of lies.
MonaLisa IS FIRED UP, READY TO GO! confused – how does she tie this spill to obama? i believe she would try to do it, but i don’t get her fb posts. and it just sounds absurd on the face of it. is bligh reef supposed to be disappeared somehow? thanks, excuse my ignorance.
from wiki:
The reef was named after William Bligh, of future Bounty fame, who served as Master aboard ship during James Cook’s third world voyage.
Sounds like we need a MUTINY against future spills like this. Until safety measures are not only put in place but actually followed, Prince William Sound is simply an (another) accident waiting to happen — and perhaps another one on the scale of the Exxon Valdez.
Barbara: I have no clue how it could be done, either. Though I do know that absolute implausibility has never impeded $’arah’s nonsense-spewing tendencies before (death-panels, anyone?)
Not being a seagoing-type person, while I can deduce that at least some of the the numbers are depths, I have no sense of the horizontal scale. Can someone who can read the chart tell me whether Bligh Reef is 100 yards outside the traffic lane, or ten miles, or what?
@ strangelet #18: While I don’t have a nautical map here at my house, each of the small grids should be around a nautical mile in size. (I know the area in question well, and have guestimated the size.) Therefore, the reef is about 3 nautical miles outside of the shipping lane.
@Hedgewytch (do you realize how hard it is to type that?) — Thank you.
So, three miles. Tugs do what, 20 knots? Nine minutes seems like a really long time to be oblivious under those circumstances. Something fishy this way swims.
I’ve got a few questions:
1. So, is this a Coast Guard tug? Or State of Alaska — or some other entity? The Coast Guard is responsible for safety in coastal waters so was this boat one of theirs?
2. Looks like the tug was way off course and no member of the 6-member crew noticed that they were heading towards the CG tower with a light flashing at 4 second intervals located 59 feet above sea level!!!!!!!!!! What the H#!*% were the crew members doing — taking a coffee break, sleeping or ???
3. Usually in narrow shipping channels there are a series of lights and buoys that are used to align the boat correctly. Did the crew miss one or more of these beacons? I remember taking the AK ferry through the narrows at night and watching the way the boat had to be steered so carefully, making sure that each set of beacons were aligned.
The press releases so far have just raised more questions and offered few answers.
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As a former member of the USCG who used to patrol PWS Pre-Exxon Valdez, I can tell you that everyone sailing there KNOWs Bligh Reef, and the danger it poses. That is if one is PAYING ATTENTION. The skipper of this CROWLEY tug just lost his job and his license with this action just as Hazelwood did. Good. The ONLY reason one hits Bligh reef is because someone wasn’t paying attention. Who knows why, but they didn’t pay attention. The Captn’ of the tug may not have been at the con (in direct command of the tug), but he/she is in ultimate charge.
This should not have happened.
In addition:
Valdez Traffic, the USCG radar facility that is for ease of understanding, is the sea traffic control like air traffic control is for aircraft.
After the Exxon Valdez spill, Valdez traffic was to pay closer attention to the coming and going of Traffic to and from Valdez. This did NOT HAPPEN.
This pisses me off. Clearly this was an instance of poor attention on everyone’s part. We’ve all done it and we all continue to do it. Maybe it’s talking on a cell phone while driving. MAybe it’s texting while serving as a train engineer (California). Multitasking. A little lack of attention when you’re the Captn’ of a ship, or tug in such a pristine area, with such material on board holds everyone to the HIGHEST standard. There should be NO mistakes. There can be NO mistakes. You know what…. this IS possible and mandatory.
I agree with one thing…….. it’s good that it was Diesel fuel. This stuff will be gone fairly quickly and no one will know the difference.
This was a “free card”.
Cripes… I can’t freekin believe it.
This would never have happened on Sarah’s watch, or with a Republican congress, or under a Republican POTUS, or if Sotomayor was not made a member of SCOTUS, or if Curtis Menard Sr. or Jr. were still alive, or if Katie Couric wasn’t such a nasty gotcha interviewer, or if Sarah’s girls were not threatened with gang-rape on the internet, or if John McCain had let Sarah make a concession speech, or if Norm Coleman’s votes had been honestly and accurately counted.
@23: Thanks, VernD. It seemed to me that this was an inexcusable error, but what do I know about sailing in Alaska?
One point, related to your examples of other inattention. Distracted driving is, indeed, dangerous, as is a texting train engineer. But it seems to me that in this case the distraction must have extended over five to ten minutes. Even I can type 140 characters in less than 5 minutes, and then, you know, look up.
As we wait to hear what is formally said to have caused this grounding, I find myself wondering how we (humans=we) keep the necessary sense of duty and urgency alive to pay attention …
AKM’s charts, Hedgewytch’s notes about distance out of shipping lane, the light 59 feet above sea level…
the so-called backup of USCG radar at Valdez…
Do people do something so often they quit paying attention or do they give into distractions like mentioned here?
We had a nasty mess here in Southeast when a licensed sewage operator turned off an alarm he was tired of listening to… and many homes were flooded with raw sewage… What kind of training was missing that personal irritation overrode systems checks?
We too have groundings every year in well marked areas of nautical hazard. The fuel spills are minimal compared to what could happen north of us but none are ignored or accepted as the-way-things-go. And it almost always comes down to inattention…
Regarding traffic in PWS, how do we make what VernD rightly calls a “free card” (almost) into a playbook of how not-to-do things? How do we build fail-safes instead of backups? How do we keep it all alive in our heads , day after day, year after year?
Thanks Vern @23 for your insight. I took a tour of PWS in 1988; the guide confidently assured everyone that “we have safeguards on top of safeguards, there could never be a spill here.” Exxon valdez happened the next year. So, talk to me about Pebble Mine, or ANWR, or drilling offshore near Florida or cape cod.
Endangered Polar Bear #25
Bingo! …this will be the next fantasy talking point that comes from the right.
Gosh, does it really say “SEPERATION ZONE” there? Is this an official map of some kind? One hopes they can pilot better than they spell — but I guess we know the anwer to that.
Blue Banshee: The tugs are owned and operated by a private company under contract with the Valdez Terminal, operated by Alyeska Pipeline Service company, which is owned by the producer companies, Exxon, BP, etc.
Alyeska was very focused on Oil Spill Contingency preparedness for about three years after Exxon Valdez, but then began cutting back, with cost cutting and the reduced value of the throughput as an excuse.
#27 Alaska Pi: I really think the failsafes are already there. Perhaps the question is how do we correct the all too common malady called ” Cranial Rectal inversion”?
Offshore drilling annoys/irritates/scares the sh*t out of me! When I was visiting Sydney in 1987, I met some great guys to have a drink with. They said they were on leave, & I knew (by their haircuts, clothes, & tats) they weren’t military, so I asked, from where? They told me they were ashore for a month (might’ve been 3 weeks) from their rig, where they were drilling for oil offshore. I told them that was the scariest thing I’d ever heard, since Oz is famous for having the planet’s most pristine ocean water. They thought I was one deranged hippie for having this opinion. I told them bluntly, “Where there’s offshore drilling, there’s oil spilling,” whether a few drops or thousands of gallons.
Fast forward to months later, at home (NYC). I was reading one of my local papers, and saw that there had been a massive Australian oil spill, which had wiped out the fairy penguin population on the North Island of New Zealand. All I could think of was the naivete of my drinking companions.
Of course, Exxon Valdez should have ended this filthy practice forever, but where there’s profit to be had, someone will exploit it.
Enough of my rant. Health and peace to all.
Just to add some questions and background on the Pathfinder grounding: As per the Coast Guard initial report the Crowley tug was returning from scouting ice. And as the Anchorage DN Dec.25 report states the tug was returning from the Hinchenbrook entrance area in 2 foot seas, 10-15kts of NE wind. Looking at the chart, the ship was headed due north in open water at between 9 and 12 knots (estmated) until approaching Bligh Reef and the course change for Valdez . Though I’m not sure what steering systems the Pathfinder now has aboard, from my experience as a sailor aboard Crowely tugs similar to the Pathfinder, the ship would often run on automatic pilot (instead of a man at the traditional spoked wheel, tugs like the Pathfinder would have a system on the bridge console that would hold the rudder to an officer-set course. At almost all times – and I say this from standing watch in tugs from Whittier to San Francisco – there are two men in the wheelhouse. And usually the sailor stands at the bridge console watching the compass course and the way ahead. Now the report on the Pathfinder says there was a crew of six. If a tug was “going outside” on a longer run such as the old Hydrotrain from Seattle to Whittier they have eight crew members: Captain, two mates, three sailors, a cook and an engineer. And the crew (one officer and one sailor per watch stand two four-hour watches each day. But harbor tugs such as the Pathfinder’s current job would have usually a captain, a mate, two deckhands, an engineer and a cook – and the four sailors would stand a 6 hour watch twice a day (12-6, 6-12)(That is my assumption). Now put it together. It was dark by then. The Pathfinder’s report to the Vessel Traffic came in at 6:15PM. That report most likely came some time after the grounding and inspection: 5, 10, 25 minutes? When did the ship actually strike? What course was it on when it did? And where, exactly did it hit? My bet is the 12-6 watch was still on duty and the Pathfinder had not yet changed course. They might have set a return course too close to Bligh Reef. Regardless, the watch in the wheelhouse was not paying attention for a long time. If the ship was about to change course there would have been extra awareness. If it was time for a watch change ( usually between 5:45 and 6PM) it is somewhat busy on the bridge, but the level of awareness is still high, and lastly the new watch would have fresh eyes. The Captain – normally with the 6-12 watch – was most likely finishing dinner when the ship struck. So sad to say one man or woman’s career is damaged along with the Pathfinder. All this is my conjecture; but it may shed some detail on what might of happened.