Our view: Citizen oversight

One of the lasting lessons Alaskans learned from the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989 was the value of local citizens' oversight of oil spill prevention and response plans -- and the need for continuing research, training, spill drills and equipment maintenance.

This isn't about pushing paper. This is about what the Marines call "situational awareness," knowing what current circumstances and conditions are, who the players are and your real ability to deal with all of them.

After Alaska's spill in 1989, the Prince William Sound Citizens Advisory Council, and another for Cook Inlet, were formed as mandated by the Oil Pollution Act of 1990. In passing the act, Congress found that complacency on the part of industry and government regulators was partly responsible for the spill and its aftermath. A nonprofit citizens organization made up of representatives from local communities, Native groups, aquaculture, fishing, tourism and recreation businesses and environmental groups provides a hard-nosed counter to complacency.

They're the people with the most to lose by complacency. Such a group includes people with the most thorough knowledge of local conditions such as tides and currents. Councils contract for independent research and analysis, tap the knowledge of people ranging from marine biologists to seasoned skippers -- people who can look at response plans and monitor spill drills and tell what will work and what won't.

Spill contingency plan reviews are one of a council's most tedious and vital jobs. Going line by line through plans that can run to a thousand pages, council members make sure there are no out-of-habitat animals or dead experts listed, that every resource and number is current, every responder on call. Such work pays off when the worst happens.

One paragraph in the AP report is particularly telling for Alaskans familiar with the '89 spill and its aftermath:

"Some out-of-state contractors who didn't know local waters placed boom where tides and currents made sure it didn't work properly. And yet disorganization has dogged efforts to use local boats. In Venice, La., near where the Mississippi River empties into the Gulf, a large group of charter captains have been known to spend their days sitting around at the marina, earning $2,000 a day without ever attacking the oil."

That's not readiness.

Citizens advisory councils make sure that unblinking vigilance is the norm, from spill plans to boats and crews, boom and skimmers, contractors and regulators. Councils comb contingency plans with critical eyes. They're watchdogs and advocates for doing it right.

Neither BP nor government regulators did it right in the Gulf.

Right now the imperative is to plug that oil leak. But later, like their brethren in Alaska, Gulf Coast residents should demand a sharper watch with a bigger role for the locals.

BOTTOM LINE: Citizens closest to the risk ensure better oil spill prevention and response work.