Carey Restino's March 29 commentary about the International Maritime Organization's recent adoption of "areas to be avoided" for ships transiting the Aleutian Islands was both informative and timely. In fact, since January 2014, an active risk reduction and response equipment enhancement program has been in place, established and administered by Alaska Maritime Prevention & Response Network (Network). The recently adopted areas to be avoided are a near mirror image of the risk reduction routes the Network and industry have successfully implemented over the past two years. The Network is an industry-supported non-profit corporation.
The Network's program focuses on risk reduction and strategic enhancement of response resources throughout Western Alaska. Since January 2014, nearly all ships transiting to or from a U. S. port have voluntarily agreed to enroll in the network's regulatory compliance program that established the very risk-reducing offshore routes Ms. Restino describes. Not only do the vast majority of ships follow these routes, but their participation fees have helped to fund a system that monitors the actual sailing routes and confirms ship's compliance with these and other risk reduction measures on a real-time basis. The Network Monitoring Center is able to monitor participating ships from the Alaska-Canada border, to the Arctic, in all of Western Alaska, all of the Aleutian Islands and the central Gulf of Alaska -- all in real-time, 24 hours a day, every day. The system also interfaces with the U. S. Coast Guard to process deviations from these routes when weather conditions necessitate a deviation for the safety of the ship and crew. Even as these ships deviate, they are monitored constantly.
The Network's Alternative Planning Criteria, which are assumptions made when "planning" a response to a theoretical oil spill and which drive the contents of a response plan, were developed by Alaskans with over 100 years of collective marine casualty and oil spill response in Alaska. The Network's important work is guided by a board of directors who reflect the industry who pays to implement the various programs. The Network's goal is to prevent situations that require responses. Should a Network participant ever need response resources, they would implement their Vessel Response Plan, contract directly with various response vendors and access the enhanced equipment capabilities made possible by the network.
Critical to environmental protection is a robust response system that leverages the experience of Alaskans and provides resources that can be promptly mobilized. The Network's success over the past two years includes the largest voluntary vessel monitoring system in the world covering over 1 million square miles and has supported the largest increase of spill response equipment in Western Alaska in nearly 20 years. Using enrollment funds provided by industry over the past eight months, the Network has supported acquisition of over 7.5 miles of new ocean and protection boom in addition to skimmers and other support equipment to be staged in strategic locations in Western Alaska. Western Alaska Rapid Response Packages, "fly-away" response kits, are staged in Anchorage. Because this equipment is "in-region" it can be mobilized without the delays seen when moving equipment between states during the Gulf of Mexico oil spill in 2010.
The network embraces the concepts of the Aleutian Islands Risk Assessment, incorporating the major tenets of that assessment into our prevention and compliance plans. We believe Alaska-based organizations created by Alaskans with first-hand experience in nearly all major marine casualties over the past 20 years are the best way to prevent oil spills, simultaneously building and sustaining a response system for the benefit of Alaskans throughout the entire Western and Arctic coast of Alaska.
James N. Butler III is managing director of Alaska Maritime Prevention & Response Network.
The views expressed here are the writer's own and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary(at)alaskadispatch.com.