SALVAGE CREW REFLOATS TANKER

By LARRY CAMPBELL and DAVID POSTMAN
Daily News reporters

VALDEZ- A crew working for Exxon Shipping Co. successfully refloated the Exxon Valdez Wednesday, Day 13 of the largest oil spill in U.S. history.

The tanker, which piled into Bligh Reef just after midnight March 24, releasing more than 10 million barrels of crude oil into Prince William Sound, was refloated at about 10:30 a.m. It was towed by tugs to Outside Bay, on Naked Island, where it arrived at about 7:30 p.m.

At the bay, temporary repairs are to be made to the ship, so that it can be taken to a port for permanent repair, according to plans announced by the company.

State environmental officials watching the refloating and towing from airplanes said there was a minimal oil sheen trailing from the tanker's stern as she was towed off toward the west.

Exxon was obviously feeling confident about the tanker raising, so much so that the company rented a luxury tourist cruiser, the Glacier Queen II, stocked it with coffee, pastries and cold cuts and invited 45 reporters and photographers out to witness the event.

The cruiser left Valdez harbor about 9:30 a.m., a cold and clammy morning. Cotton ball clouds daubbed the snowy mountainsides that define the Valdez Narrows and surround the Sound.

Salvage experts had been running air compressors since early Wednesday morning. The plan called for pumping the vessel with a cushion of air on top of oil and sea water ballast in her holding tanks, increasing the ship's buoyancy. That, combined with the high tide, gave the salvagers the three feet of clearance needed to the tanker free of the rocks that had impaled the Valdez.

The operation went so smoothly that the tanker was free and buoyant about 30 minutes before the pressladen cruiser got there. The vessel was visible, but still about a mile away.

Exxon officials originally said they thought the boat would float about 1:30 p.m.

"The tide is obviously coming up a little faster that we thought," said Gary Gorski, an Exxon oil spill response team member, up from Baton Rouge. He was speaking to a miffed and suspicious press corps, "You know, this is not an exact science."

The 987foot behemoth was towed off by two tugs, the Crusader and the Gladiator. Another four tugs followed on either side of the Valdez, to correct her course. About a mile behind, four fishing boats towed two containment booms to corral any oil left behind the tanker.

Exxon's success with its ship was not matched by success in impressing state officials with its handling of the oil spill cleanup. In Juneau, Gov. Steve Cowper announced that the state had asked the Coast Guard to take over cleanup operations from the oil company.

Cowper said he talked to Coast Guard Adm. Edward Nelson Jr. Wednesday and was assured the military would assume command.

But Nelson said Wednesday night in Valdez that the Coast Guard would not take over the cleanup. But he said his agency will be monitoring the company more closely.

"We'll be getting more into organization management," he said. "We've got to have daily reports (from Exxon) what they've been doing, where they've been going."

"I'm personally not happy with what we've gotten so far."

Under Cowper's plan, Exxon would have paid for the cleanup and done the work. But the Coast Guard would make the decisions about what is done and when it is done.

"We appreciate the efforts of Exxon," Cowper said. "We think they were done in good faith. But we think there has to be a much more disciplined management structure."

Cowper said "you need a military system to get things done" but said he did not want to be overly critical of Exxon.

But the oil company was heavily criticized in the state's formal request to the Coast Guard. Lynn Tomich Kent, an official of the state Department of Environmental Conservation, wrote that a steering committee of state, Coast Guard and Exxon officials that was set up after the spill has not worked.

"Exxon has failed to provide to the Steering Committee the information necessary to make sound planning recommendations regarding the cleanup of oil and the protection of resources," Kent wrote to Darryle Waldron, the Coast Guard's Alaska commander.

"The Department is very concerned about Exxon's continued failure to provide several key items specifically, the lack of a long range plan and action to mechanically clean up oil from the water, the lack of a daily update on equipment which has been deployed and the operational status of that equipment, and the lack of a plan for the equipment for the next days' activities."

Exxon spokesman Don Cornett said Wednesday the company would not fight a change in command: "If the Coast Guard wants to take it over, it's up to them."

What about the accusations made in the letter? "I'm not going to get into an argument with the governor," Cornett said. "Whatever they decide, we'll go with it."

On Tuesday, Nelson said the troika that has been running the cleanup himself, DEC Commissioner Dennis Kelso, and Frank Iarossi, president of Exxon Shipping Co. was getting along just fine.

"There is no problem between the spill managers," he said. "We are working together very well."

Cowper said that as of Wednesday that troika was out of business. But the three were meeting in the Valdez Coast Guard station late Wednesday night.

The Coast Guard takeover he proposed is different than the federal takeover considered last week, Cowper said. Last week President Bush considered issuing a federal emergency declaration which would have allowed the Federal Emergency Management Agency to take control.

"We don't want a person who hasn't been to Prince William Sound before to appear from a place like Chicago and suddenly be in charge when it would probably take a week and a half to two weeks to get that person up to scratch," Cowper said.

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