The new oil spill response barge Allison Creek arrived in Valdez in May, the sixth new-build barge to join the Alyeska’s Ship Escort Response Vessel System, or SERVS, fleet since 2018. The custom-built vessel replaces the old Allison Creek barge, which was built in 1956, and in service on the Trans Alaska Pipeline System, or TAPS, as long anyone can remember.
The new Allison Creek is now typically moored off the west end of the Valdez Marine Terminal, or VMT. The 200-foot barge has 13,600 barrels of recovered crude storage and is usually paired with the Valdez Star, a 123-foot self-propelled belt skimmer. On deck, there is an office for personnel and four connexes that hold oil spill response supplies and decontamination equipment. The barge is powered by two cat diesel generators and has a deck crane. It was built by Dakota Creek Industries in Anacortes, Washington.
Emergency Preparedness and Response Manager Mike Day evoked his family’s history in Valdez on February 12, when he and other SERVS staff celebrated the launch of the new barge in Anacortes.
“The Allison Creek is where my family got their drinking water,” he said of the Valdez landmark that is the namesake of the new barge. Mike’s family homesteaded on the land that eventually became the Valdez Marine Terminal. Allison Creek now provides hydroelectric power for the community as well as drinking and process water to the VMT. “Our goal for this barge is that we never actually use it for the purpose that we built it for.”
Photos and article courtesy of Alyeska Corporate Communications.