March 27 1989, I woke up to listen to horrible morning news. Two nights before in a meeting, a speaker from Cordova said that it wasn't "if but when" we had a spill and here it was! I got a call within a few hours that my boat was need with crew as soon as possible. I grabbed my dad as crew as there wasn't anybody in town available at a moments notice....I, and about a half dozen other Valdez boats had a contract in place as we'ed been called out in January to respond to an oil spill in the Port of Valdez. A tanker had a weld crack crossing the Gulf of Alaska in winter. At that time the tankers were all single hull. We were at Exxon Valdez site within a few hours. We were first responders....
Date(s): May 16, 2024. Album by John Stelling. 1 - 24 of 31 Total. 358 Visits.
1 This is what we saw when we showed up on scene. Thats Bligh Island on the left. The ship was hard aground on the reef. The red navigation bouy was well off the bow of the ship! I remember traveling by that reef many years earlier and seeing the rusting wreckage of another ship at low tide. It was well charted and marked.
2 Our first job was to hook to a containment boom with another boat. That boom was about a mile long. We were told to drag it around and try to scoop up as much as possible. That boom was soon completely full!!! The only way they had to recover oil at that point was one class 7 MARCO skimmer that held 90 barrels and two class 5 and at that point no place to unload them....The oil was so thick in the water when we pumped the marine head to flush it we drew in crude oil.
3 It took them awhile but Exxon had a couple of their fleet pumped dry so they wouldn't draw so much and pulled along side the Valdez to lighter the remaining oil.
4 It took them awhile but they salvaged the oil from the good tanks.
5 It took them awhile on the reef but finally after about a month here she is being moved to Outside Bay on Naked Island. There she was anchored for about a month or so to be cleaned and the damage assessed before being moved to a shipyard in the south.
6 In the mean time work commenced to try recover or clean up the mess.
7 George Hayes's Northern Girl. Things got lost in the flurry. George was sent out on contract and told to report to the Incident Commander which is what he did. He was told to find a place to anchor and await further orders. He stayed on anchor for about a month except to get food and fuel....We joked he was going to go aground on his egg shells and coffee grounds.
8 The ICS (Incident Command System) came into play. Alyeska Pipeline was the first responder so they took control until Exxon had their representative take command of the oil spill. All interested parties had a part of the Unified Command. The US Coast Guard was one of the players.
9 This is a State of Alaska ferry. Also an interested party as the spill was in State waters.
10 Even the US Navy showed up. They brought along some of the class 5 scammers. This was so big an area we couldn't see it all...It was happening in every bay and on every island on the south west side of Prince William Sound. Fishing boats were marshaleld all over the state. Seward, Homer and Kodiak to name a few.
11 A Navy class 5
12 This is Jesse Franks boat Catalina. She used to ba a pretty boat...all white
13 My contract was cut twice and I was told to return to town and report to dispatch when I got there. No one knew how far this was going...rumor was they were just going to let it go like they've done in other parts of the world. So I went back to work. A few days later I got a call as The Canadian outfit Barrard Clean had a skimmer and was looking for a fishing boat to tow it and mine was tied to the dock. Barrard Clean was a contingency oil spill outfit from Vancouver BC to protect their harbor.
14 Barrard Clean II. Came with a licensed ship captain and crew. She was a MARCO class 7 that held 90 barrels of product..
15 I was under contract to Exxon but worked for Barrard Clean. They hired my siener Glacier Island and my seine skiff and me and my crew member.
16 Barrard Clean didn't have living quarters so they hired this crew boat for accomidations. They had a cook of sorts aboard so we could eat there as well.
17 Barrard Clean under tow
18 That crew knew what they were doing. Basically they gave us general direction and let us do the maneuvering as we could see the oil out front.
19 After a short time the light ends of the oil boil off to the air and your left with mousse its called. Basically sludge
20 The business end of Barrard clean. It had a vacuum system behind the belt so the oil was drawn onto it and stayed until it was skimmed off the belt and it was collected in the wier.
21 The wier
22 Unloading 90 barrels of oil/ sludge
23 Glacier Island under tow. we were picking up "free oil".
