Alaska Risk Assessment on the right track

FAIRBANKS— Well they're sure taking their sweet time about it, but the State Risk Assessment of all our oil infrastructure seems to be moving in the right direction. If done right, the $4 million study will prove conclusively that Alaska's pipelines are in dire need of oversight, and show the benefits of a robust oversight and maintenance program.

The first public hearing on the project was last Thursday in Fairbanks. Industry and government people outnumbered the actual public three-to-one, but those who did show up brought an impressive breadth of knowledge. And among those whose job it was to attend were every member of the State Oversight Team, who are ultimately responsible for the recommendations at the end of the project, Senator Joe Thomas, Rep David Guttenberg, and Rep Scott Kawasaki. I've been to many public hearings and it is VERY rare for any actual decision-makers to be there listening. That they took the trouble here shows the State is taking public interest in the project seriously.

The best news to come out of Thursday's hearing was State project manager Ira Rosen's announcement that they are negotiating for a National Academy of Sciences peer review of the methodology. This is a great step that will help ensure the method and results are scientifically robust and objectively defensible. It is absolutely necessary too, because the project currently amounts to government and industry reviewing themselves alone. Both Doyon and the State live off of oil industry money. We're all Alaskans and I have growing faith they'll do a good job on this, but there is a clear conflict of interest. The NAS peer review will be the critical test.

To ensure at least some independent oversight of the actual implemenation phase of the project, they should fund and form a mini Citizen Advisory Council of Alaskan stakeholders for purposes of this study. The State could convene such a group to meet during project implementation and participate as a non-voting, advisory body during the critical decision phase. If  impacted communities, industries like tourism and fishing, interests like subsistence, and Alaska Native tribes are not in the room when decisions are made, it will be very hard to hold the end product up as any kind of independent review.

And whoever thought to leave ADF&G off the State Oversight Team wasn't thinking clearly. 

Also encouraging at the meeting was the strong role being played by the Department of Revenue. Deputy Commissioner Marsha Davis explained that Revenue was a "keenly interested agency," due to the threat to State revenues from accidents and spills. She also explained that the new ACES tax structure, being based on Net Profit, for the first time gives the state access to oil company figures for maintenance spending and unplanned disruptions due to accidents.

This is critical because the project relies on getting accurate information from oil companies, who are by habit not prone to share anything. Davis explained that if the industry tried to stonewall they'd "be their own worst enemy." The choice for industry really is whether to "do this the easy way, or the hard way." They can share the information voluntarily; or, force the State to enact further laws and regulations requiring it.

Probably the most intelligent comment of the evening came from Fairbanks citizen Ed Morgan, who gave everyone a quick lesson in "process safety." Recommended reading is the Baker report, which blamed process safety for BP's 2004 refinery explosion. Maintenance procedures don't mean anything if they're not actually done, for example. Human factors (like lack of training) can cause even physically perfect pipelines to fail. The key, he explained, is a work environment with good input feedback loops. 

Pam Miller of the Northern Alaska Environmental Center pointed out that access to oilfield workers was critical, given historic company hostility to Whistleblowers. The project team said they'll take anonymous comments on the web. (Go HERE to comment).  Several of us said that probably wasn't good enough, and offered suggestions for ways to reach workers on the patch. Anyone with information about risk factors on Alaska's oilfield would do all Alaskans a great public service by sharing their knowledge with this team. Use their comment form, and the State Project Contact is Ira Rosen: (907) 465-6219, ira.rosen@alaska.gov  

Richard Fineberg, who has written extensively on these topics, noted agreement with every single public commenters. Dave Lacey noted that the reality of Global Warming need to be considered, including changing permafrost.

A Regional Citizens Advisory Council for the TAPS was brought up as a point of strong agreement, as a potential solution to many of the biggest risks. Morgan, who happened to have run Alyeksa/SERVS for some years, offered that in his experience, without any doubt, the Prince William Sound RCAC has made Alyeska's operations there better and safer. He said it was "well worth the money they spent on it."

I hope many of you will attend the meetings or comment on their online form. 

For all the potential good of this project though, it sure is slow as molasses. They don't even plan to start actually DOING the study until after next summer. That is three years after the 2006 corrosion-caused spills and shutdown that showed something is broken that needs fixing. Meanwhile the Copper River sits exposed to the corroding pipeline, Big Oil is still cutting costs, and those of us downstream have no real voice in decisions. The ARA project is going in the right direction. I just hope they get where we're going before its too late.