President's Message
David Wight, President and CEO

Review process continuously improves spill preparedness

Our staff works closely with the Joint Pipeline Office (JPO), a consortium of 11 government agencies that monitors pipeline operations, to develop and maintain oil spill prevention and response plans. In addition to ongoing oversight, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) reviews and approves our plan every year. The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation approves the plan on a five-year review cycle.

As part of this ongoing process, BLM recently asked Alyeska to improve spill response training for TAPS employees and the way JPO and Alyeska officials review TAPS' minimum of 64 spill response exercises on the pipeline and approximately 40 at the Valdez Marine Terminal and Prince William Sound that are conducted every year. The goal is to better disseminate lessons learned during spill exercises throughout TAPS.

BLM also wants to ensure that new personnel who will have initial oil spill response duties receive appropriate training prior to field deployment. Currently, each responder receives a minimum of eight hours of Occupational Safety and Health Administration training prior to field deployment, the minimum required by law. This includes general safety and personal protective equipment training that is not oil spill response specific. BLM is requiring Alyeska to define a minimum level of specific response training on top of the eight hour mandatory requirement. BLM also wants uniform procedures to review and document worker training and to increase personnel's hands-on practice with response equipment.

These changes will support our ongoing strategic reconfiguration plan that should be fully implemented in 2006. This pipeline modernization plan will automate four pump stations and update TAPS' staffing and systems to reflect improved technology and decreased throughput.

We are making these changes so that TAPS will continue to operate safely and reliably into the foreseeable future. Toward this goal, we will maintain our current number of spill responders on the line while we continue to improve TAPS' spill contingency plan.