U.S. PETROLEUM INDUSTRY FORMS OIL SPILL RESPONSE ORGANIZATION

Sept. 10, 1990
U.S. oil companies have launched an organization to contain and clean up large oil spills throughout the U.S. The Marine Spill Response Corp. (MSRC) is an independent, privately financed, nonprofit, spill response organization. It is the successor to the Petroleum Industry Response Organization, which oil companies formed following the Exxon Valdez oil spill off Alaska last year (OGJ, Feb. 5, p. 32). MSRC Pres. John D. Costello, a retired Coast Guard vice admiral, said the new organization

U.S. oil companies have launched an organization to contain and clean up large oil spills throughout the U.S.

The Marine Spill Response Corp. (MSRC) is an independent, privately financed, nonprofit, spill response organization.

It is the successor to the Petroleum Industry Response Organization, which oil companies formed following the Exxon Valdez oil spill off Alaska last year (OGJ, Feb. 5, p. 32).

MSRC Pres. John D. Costello, a retired Coast Guard vice admiral, said the new organization will be fully operational within 30 months with state of the art equipment and trained personnel.

The MSRC name was adopted because the organization's potential clientele goes beyond the oil industry.

"Independent tanker operations, some public utilities, in fact any company that handles petroleum and petroleum products in quantity over coastal waters is now a prospective client," Costello said.

EXPANDED SCOPE

MSRC has been substantially expanded in scope. Equipment, maintenance, research, and personnel costs for the first 5 years now are estimated at more than $800 million, three times the original estimate.

it now plans to respond to major spills in offshore and tidal waters, including bays, harbors, and mouths of rivers, along the Atlantic, Gulf, and Pacific coasts, as well as Hawaii, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico.

Costello said creation of MSRC was facilitated by the recent enactment of federal comprehensive oil spill legislation, which limits the liability of organizations cleaning up spills.

But MSRC still faces a patchwork of state laws, some of which do not recognize the legal risks faced by oil spill responders. As a result, the organization will work for adoption of the federal standard in those states.

MSRC will have a staff of 400 and require more than $315 million worth of initial equipment, including vessels, trucks, booms, skimmers, dispersants, and wildlife and shoreline rehabilitation tools to contain, mitigate, and clean up spills.

MSRC is designed mainly to clean catastrophic spills but will be available to help with smaller spills if the Coast Guard determines local response capabilities are inadequate.

MSRC expects to respond to most spills under the direction of the U.S. Coast Guard. It will augment local spill coops and response contractors.

ARM'S LENGTH FUNDING

MSRC will be funded by a separate, nonaffiliated corporation, the Marine Preservation Association (MPA), whose membership is composed of owners, shippers, and receivers of crude and products.

While MPA will finance MSRC, it will not direct MSRC operations.

MSRC will be independent with its own self-perpetuating board of directors, none of whom will be affiliated with the petroleum industry or oil transportation.

Costello said that arm's length relationship and the broad commitment by the oil industry to fund MSRC are 11 precedent setting." He added, "I know of no other occasion in which an industry has reacted in such a massive way to help meet an urgent national need."

MSRC members will pay annual dues based on the number of barrels of oil they transported in the previous year. MSRC will use those funds to pay its operating, capital, and research and development costs. If an MPA member becomes a spiller, MSRC will execute the spiller's response plan, and the spiller will pay for the cleanup.

EQUIPMENT CENTERS

MSRC will have large scale capability to respond to catastrophic offshore and tidal spills of crude and other persistent oils.

It will audit the readiness of response forces to combat spills. And it will conduct an R&D program to improve information about spills and the technology of oil spill response and cleanup.

The research programs, among other things, will study chemical and biological effects of spilled oil on the environment, techniques for on-water recovery and treatment, and prevention and mitigation of shoreline effects. Patents resulting from R&D will be donated to the public domain.

MSRC will maintain headquarters in Washington, D.C., and five regional response centers. Each center will be capable of responding to a spill of as much as 30,000 tons (216,000 bbl) of oil, about the size of the 1989 Exxon Valdez accident off Alaska.

If a large spill occurs, regional centers will join forces to respond to it.

Each of the regional centers will store equipment in warehouses in four to six other areas-a total of 23 sites for all five regions-and in some instances also will have response personnel and vessels stationed outside the regional center.

Costello said, "We will be able to promptly get people and equipment to spills wherever they occur. We put the response centers and equipment prestaging areas in locations that have the greatest potential for accidents. These locations reflect several critical factors, including oil transportation patterns, volumes of oil being moved, and sensitivity of the environment."

These are the response centers and prestaging areas for each region:

  • Northeast Region-Response center in the New York/New Jersey metropolitan area, prestaging areas in Portland, Me., Boston, Narragansett Bay, Delaware Bay, Chesapeake Bay, and Norfolk, Va.

  • Southeast Region-Response center in Port Everglades, Fla., prestaging areas in Wilmington, N.C., Savannah, Ga., Jacksonville, Fla., Tampa, Fla., and Virgin Islands.

  • Gulf Coast Region-Response center at Lake Charles, La., prestaging areas in Mobile, Ala., Venice, La., Galveston, Tex., and Corpus Christi, Tex.

  • Southwest Region-Response center in the Port Hueneme area of southern California north of Los Angeles, prestaging areas in San Diego, Los Angeles/Long Beach, San Francisco, and Oahu, Hawaii.

    ,liNorthwest Region-Response center in Seattle, prestaging areas in Astoria, Ore., Bellingham, Wash., Port Angeles, Wash., and Alaska.

Costello said MSRC will have an appropriate response and cleanup role in Alaska, but it has yet to be defined by industry, state, and federal officials. He noted Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. has made improvements in Alaska's Prince William Sound, giving it a greater response capability than any of MSRC's planned regional response centers.

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