FAIRBANKS, Alaska (AP) - State environmental officials dismissed allegations of improper welding procedures used on massive oil tanks at Valdez three years ago, but a recent anonymous complaint of a cover-up has prompted a Prince William Sound oil industry watchdog group to probe the issue again.
Alyeska Pipeline Service Co.'s marine terminal manager Tom Stokes, in a recent letter to the Prince William Sound Regional Citizens' Advisory Council, noted that the state reviewed the welding procedures and found virtually no problems in 2003.
Even if the welds failed, concrete containment dikes would hold the oil, Stokes said in his letter.
Stan Stephens, the citizens' council president, and John Devens, the group's director, met with Alyeska President Keven Hostler last week to discuss the resurrected allegations.
Stephens and Devens haven't reached any conclusions, according to council spokesman Stan Jones.
"Like you, we've seen both sides of the documents," Jones told the Washington, D.C., bureau of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner on Monday. "We're not sure what to make of it so we are hiring an expert on tank welds."
The citizens' council is a 19-member watchdog group created after the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil tanker spill. Alyeska pays for the council's budget.
Mike Heatwole, Alyeska spokesman, said the company has a "very, very robust, thoroughly reviewed" tank maintenance program.
"There is absolutely no risk to the Valdez Marine Terminal" from the welds, he said. Even so, the company is doing another review to reconfirm that everything had been addressed, he said.
The issue arose in early May when Glen Plumlee, a former Alyeska inspector and financial analyst, wrote to Chuck Hamel, a Virginia resident and former shipping broker with a history of conflict with Alaska's oil companies.
Plumlee said an employee at the Joint Pipeline Office, a state-federal agency that oversees the pipeline, told him of the alleged welding problems. The employee, who Plumlee did not identify, also said JPO and Alyeska "colluded" to cover up the problems.
Plumlee took an early retirement from Alyeska in April. He said he was asked to leave because he cooperated with criminal investigators. He has filed complaints against the company with the Department of Labor.
Hamel passed on the welding allegations to Stephens, who forwarded them to Alyeska for a response.
Rhea Dobosh, spokeswoman for the Joint Pipeline Office, said her agency helped investigate the welding concerns several years ago and found them to be groundless.
"I don't know where that allegation could possibly have come from," she said.
She said numerous agencies and people were involved in the investigation, making it impossible for JPO and Alyeska to "collude" on anything.
"It would be like buying off a whole town," she said. The JPO's documents and actions in the initial investigation are public, with the exception of a review of a personnel issue linked to the inquiry, she said.
The state Department of Environmental Conservation received reports in the fall of 2002 that Alyeska had not followed the welding standards on three tanks. On April 23, 2003, the DEC wrote a detailed letter relaying its findings to Alyeska.
"The letter, with the exception of two issues involving Tank 55, concludes that all work was done in accordance with (American Petroleum Industry) Standard 653," Stokes noted in his recent letter to the council.
Plumlee's letter said the tanks in question were numbers 5 and 10. "It is my understanding that the incorrect welding procedure specification was used in the lowest rings of both these tanks, perhaps inadvertently," Plumlee wrote. The welds should have been redone, he said. If a lower ring failed all at once, the oil could slosh over the containment dike into Port Valdez, he said.
Heatwole said Alyeska is confident in the dikes. Each surrounds two tanks and can hold 110 percent of the volume of both at once, he said.
Stokes, in his response to Stephens, said the major oil tanks repaired in 2002 were actually numbers 5 and 16. Each can hold just over a half-million barrels of oil.
Alyeska had to cut a door into Tank 5 to install a new floor. The DEC report found no flaws in the procedures used to weld the piece back in place and replace the floor.
In Tank 16, Alyeska made minor floor repairs and moved a sump. Neither required a door to be cut in the tank wall, so "the type of work performed on the tank could not lead to the type of failure suggested in Mr. Hamel's letter," Stokes said. DEC didn't address any concerns about Tank 16 in its report.
The DEC review also covered tanks 93 and 55, though.
The work on Tank 93, which holds up to 430,000 barrels of ballast water, had no problems, the agency said.
The work on Tank 55, a 40,000-barrel diesel tank, required cutting a door in the wall. According to dates on tracking reports, DEC said, Alyeska welded the door back in place a few days before some welding procedures were approved-the reverse of the proper order. Alyeska also did not have records on how it monitored heat levels on two welds, DEC said.
Heatwole said the problem on Tank 55 arose when welders discovered they were using criteria designed for a different metal thickness. Alyeska evaluated the work they had done and determined it had satisfied criteria for the actual metal thickness, he said. No issue remains, he said.
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Information from: Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, http://www.newsminer.com
