Spill Drill at Klutina River

Trans Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS) emergency responders and regulators conducted a combined resource spill exercise on the Klutina River on Sept. 22.

Alyeska Pipeline Service Company holds more than 70 spill exercises a year to test and practice its oil spill contingency plan to ensure that well-trained personnel and appropriate equipment are ready to respond to emergencies along the entire length of the 800-mile-long pipeline. These exercises routinely involve a variety of pipeline stakeholders, including Alyeska employees and contractors, state and federal agencies and local community representatives.

The Klutina River drill took place environmentally sensitive area near Copper Center. The combined response deployed personnel from TAPS Pump Stations 9, 11 and 12 and response crews from Alyeska’s Ship Escort/Response Vessel System (SERVS) in Valdez. It was designed to test and evaluate TAPS’ response capabilities that would protect the Klutina and Copper Rivers in the event of an actual spill. Both rivers contain resident and migratory fish populations.

The exercise began with a simulated oil leak originating from a below ground section of the pipeline on the south side of the Klutina River. In the exercise scenario, a 2,000-barrel spill had the potential of reaching the Copper River. To minimize the impact of the spill, responders deployed containment boom at various locations along the Klutina River and its confluence with the Copper River. One of the drill objectives was to test the effectiveness of a rapid river deployment system. The system uses a special Boom Vane™ spill response system that is designed to deploy and hold oil spill containment boom on fast moving waterways.

Alyeska used its Mobile Command Post (MCP) to establish an on-scene command center at the simulated spill site to provide a communications hub for field responders and on- and off-site spill managers. The MCP has more than 600 square feet of office space and is equipped with independent power and communications systems so that it can operate at remote sites to provide a link between field workers, on-scene command staff and the Incident Management Team at TAPS’ emergency operations center.

Alyeska and the Joint Pipeline Office officials routinely evaluate simulated spill exercises to improve response in the event of a real spill. The Joint Pipeline Office is a consortium of six state and six federal agencies that have oversight responsibilities for TAPS and other oil and gas pipelines in Alaska. Three officials from Ahtna, Inc., a regional Native corporation that has land interests near the simulated Klutina River spill site, also participated as observers.

Evaluators and participants were very happy with the simulated response and have determined that the drill was a major success.