The Council’s annual report, Year in Review 2022/2023, is now available. This report covers the many programs and projects we’ve been working on over the past year, such as oil spill prevention and response, environmental monitoring, oil spill contingency plans, operations at the Valdez Marine Terminal, invasive species monitoring, our outreach efforts, and much more. Highlights from this year include:
An assessment of risks and safety culture at the Valdez Marine Terminal
Ensuring the adequacy of secondary containment liners for the terminal’s crude oil storage tanks
Supporting solutions for sustainable funding for state spill
prevention and response
Improvements to how the Council monitors weather and sea currents in our region
Monitoring oil spill drills and exercises
Reexamining the Council’s position on use of dispersants in our region
Thirty years ago, a new Council program was just getting underway. The assignment for the new Long-Term Environmental Monitoring Program was to identify adverse impacts of the oil industry on the ecosystems in Prince William Sound and the Gulf of Alaska.
Just a few years prior, as a result of the devastating Exxon Valdez oil spill, the U.S. Congress had passed a law requiring such a monitoring program.
The Council worked with researchers to develop the program’s plan that, with some modifications to incorporate new technologies, is still in existence today.
Copying the approach taken by NOAA to monitor other areas, the program developers included two main tasks. Those were to combine chemical and biological assessment tools to determine whether hydrocarbons from the nearby oil industry:
Accumulated in nearby sediments
Affected nearby aquatic organisms
Starting in 1993, researchers began collecting samples of the sediments and blue mussels. Ten locations were chosen throughout Prince William Sound and the Gulf of Alaska, largely following the path of the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
The monitoring in Port Valdez is mostly focused on assessing the environmental impacts of the Valdez Marine Terminal while the monitoring elsewhere is focused on assessing the impacts of oil tankers, including possible lingering oil from the Exxon Valdez spill. In addition to sites that were heavily oiled in 1989, the monitoring is also done at clean, unoiled sites for comparison.
Mussels were chosen because they filter large amounts of water and they remain in one location. They have been shown to accumulate hydrocarbons when they are nearby, and to eliminate the hydrocarbons during cleaner conditions. This means mussels reflect what is happening in their environment better than other organisms.
The program today
Three types of samples are analyzed today. Mussels and sediments are collected as in years past, and in 2016, researchers added a new tool called a passive sampling device. These are special plastic strips deployed underwater to which oil particles adhere. They can detect lower levels of hydrocarbons than the mussel and sediment sampling.
All three sample types are sent out to laboratories for chemical analysis. The labs measure and report the various types of oil contamination. Then scientists interpret the data.
Effects on genes: In 2019, the Council began looking into new methods to measure the impacts of oil on organisms in the environment. Researchers conducted a pilot study, analyzing genes of mussels using a technique known as “transcriptomics.”
Transcriptomics involves measuring how particular genes are expressed in an organism. This expression can be affected by conditions in the environment, such as exposure to hydrocarbons.
A new report examined hydrocarbons that enter Prince William Sound from the Valdez Marine Terminal that until recently have received little attention.
Researchers Maxwell Harsha and David Podgorski from the University of New Orleans investigated the current process of removing crude oil residue from tanker ballast water. They were specifically looking for a type of compound called oxygenated hydrocarbons, as well as heavy metals.
What are oxygenated hydrocarbons?
Hydrocarbons are made of hydrogen and carbon molecules. There are a variety of types, depending on how these molecules are arranged. Crude oil is a mixture of types of hydrocarbons.
Hydrocarbons can become “oxygenated” when atoms of oxygen become attached to hydrocarbon molecules. This family of compounds is currently not monitored or regulated because they cannot be detected with the same process as other components of crude oil. Concerns about these compounds are emerging due to potential risks to human health and the environment.
Residue left in ballast water
Three treatment processes are employed to remove hydrocarbons from oily ballast water: gravity separation, pressurized air treatment called dissolved air flotation, and biological treatment.
Harsha and Podgorski compared samples of water taken at different points during the process of cleaning ballast water at the terminal.
The study’s results demonstrate that the treatment process effectively removes most hydrocarbon compounds, such as benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene (BTEX). These are considered the most harmful to humans and other organisms, known to cause cancer and neurological impacts. The concentration of hydrocarbons in the water after treatment is at historically low levels. The researchers also found that one of the steps in the treatment, which uses dissolved air to remove small particles of hydrocarbons from the water, may lead to the formation of oxygenated hydrocarbons that are then released into Port Valdez.
Traditional monitoring techniques used at the Valdez Marine Terminal identify other hydrocarbons, but don’t catch oxygenated hydrocarbons.
How are hydrocarbons cleaned from ballast water? Oily ballast water is pumped into the treatment facility where it is processed to remove contaminants. It is first allowed to settle, which separates most of the oil by gravity. That oil is skimmed off, and then the water is treated with an air bubble process that removes additional compounds. The final stage is a biological treatment where oil-eating bacteria digest more of the hydrocarbon residue. In this image, the red asterisks note the points where researchers took samples.
What is ballast water?
Tankers sometimes pump seawater into empty crude oil storage tanks to help balance the vessel during rough seas. When a vessel carrying oily ballast water arrives at the Valdez Marine Terminal, the water is treated to remove hydrocarbons before discharged into the sea at Port Valdez.
In 1989, when a young Patience Andersen Faulkner was working as a legal aide in the picturesque town of Cordova, disaster struck when crude oil spilled into Prince William Sound from the tanker Exxon Valdez.
Part of her job was to listen to the folks who came into the law office talk about their experiences with the spill.
“They would tell me how things devastated them emotionally,” she says. Even though the spill affected her too, she just listened.
The town didn’t have much in the way of mental health services, so Andersen Faulkner pushed the lawyers she worked for to get the community some help. They introduced her to Dr. Steve Picou, a sociology professor at the University of South Alabama.
Dr. Picou had been studying the impacts that technological disasters had on communities. While the effects of natural disasters were well-understood, technological disasters were a relatively new field, with little documentation. After the spill, he came to Alaska to study how the disaster affected the community of Cordova. This work developed into the Council’s guidebook called “Coping With Technological Disasters,” designed to help communities cope better with similar disasters in the future.
A technological disaster is human-caused. These accidents are caused by the failure of systems that are in the control of people. Examples include an oil spill, train derailment, plant explosion, or other accident, which have different effects on communities than a natural disaster.
How different types of disasters create different social environments
Not only are the effects of a technological disaster long-lasting, they differ from other types of disasters. After natural disasters, such as earthquakes or typhoons, there are systems in place for support, such as government agencies. Communities often bond during efforts to rebuild.
Following a technological disaster, there are questions about responsibility, victim-blaming occurs, and complex lawsuits are common. All of these can cause lingering psychological damage.
In 2006, Dr. Picou surveyed Cordovans to examine the long-term effects of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. His work showed that 17 years after the spill, recovery was progressing, but psychological stress from the spill was still present.
Some natural disasters can have elements in common with technological disasters. Problems with preparation and response, such as occurred after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, can cause similar community effects.
Learning to listen
Andersen Faulkner noticed that when the clients talked through their problems, they often left feeling better.
“They weren’t cured of anything, they didn’t have any money, but they at least knew they had a tool within themselves on which to draw,” she says about the experience at the time.
The Council’s 1996 guidebook by Dr. Picou included a section on training community members to become peer listeners. This work was based on the experiences of Andersen Faulkner and other Cordovans. In 1998, Andersen Faulkner joined the Council’s Board of Directors, where she served as a representative of the Cordova District Fishermen United until 2022. She helped guide the development of updates to the guide and manual.
Over the years, this program was used and adapted for recovery following disasters such as Hurricane Katrina, the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and the COVID-19 pandemic.
In 2021, the Council updated the “Coping With Technological Disasters” Guidebook. This year, the Council sponsored a major overhaul of the peer listener program. A newly revised Peer Listener manual incorporates many advances in the fields of peer-to-peer support and community resilience.
How the new manual can help
The revised manual is designed to assist communities that have been through a disaster. Here are a few ways the manual can be beneficial.
For individuals:
Skills to be a better listener
Examples of supportive and reassuring responses
Warning signs that additional help is needed beyond peer support
How to recognize when you are getting overwhelmed and need to take care of yourself
Links to resources for additional help, including many specifically for Alaskans
For communities:
Promotes a network of support that increases resiliency
The Council’s annual report, Year in Review 2022/2023, is now available. This report covers the many programs and projects we’ve been working on over the past year, such as oil spill prevention and response, environmental monitoring, oil spill contingency plans, operations at the Valdez Marine Terminal, invasive species monitoring, our outreach efforts, and much more. Highlights from this year include:
