The BP official added that he believes the investigation into the spill "is fundamentally flawed because it does not identify the real root causes that resulted from a failed [uninterrupted power supply] breaker and the response of [Alyeska] personnel to the power outage.
"The recommendations resulting from this investigation as well as other investigations identified in the report lack specificity as to what [Alyeska] needs to do in order to prevent future failures of equipment and people," the BP official said. "Investigators were not able to replicate the breaker failure and therefore were not able to identify a root cause for the failure. This means that the device remains in service with the likelihood of a similar failure in the future."
The BP officials said the report's recommendations, that corrective action should focus heavily on communication and training do not "strongly influence or motivate behavioral changes.
"The condition described by the investigation report and its scale indicates a deep and widespread problem that is likely to be reflective not just of the operating environment but also maintenance and integrity management discipline," the BP official said. "What was described as an operating discipline issue is likely not to be an isolated condition but reflective of the entirety of [Alyeska's] operation including management of the TAPS mechanical integrity." The report underscores "a complete lack of management leadership to motivate personnel without fear of retaliation to perform their job duties with the highest degree of integrity and with rigorous discipline."
TAPS owners have "abdicated their responsibility for proper management of [the pipeline] to a BP executive [Hostler] who exhibits the same flawed management qualities that characterize the BP leadership culture which have led to numerous integrity incidents in the last five years," the BP official added. "You could describe TAPS as Alaska's ticking time bomb because of flawed leadership, flawed management, lack of rigorous operational discipline and loss of skilled and experienced staff. The numerous incidents preceding the [spill at pump station 9] are harbingers of a worse event that will happen unless an intervention by an owner with a stronger management culture occurs." (A detailed story on the circumstances that led up to the spill will be published later this week.)
The BP official said both the Thebaud and pump station 9 reports are cause for serious concern.
"The public, State of Alaska, Department of Transportation and Congress should be alarmed by the findings of the two reports," the BP official said. Alyeska "is a deeply distressed organization and has a serious systemic issue with operational discipline that is likely indicative of a bigger problem with serious integrity management implications."
Patricia Klinger, a spokeswoman for the Department of Transportation's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), said in an interview last month that the circumstances behind the spill are still under investigation by federal regulators.
Additionally, Klinger said a corrective action order was issued to Alyeska May 27, requiring the company to keep personnel on site 24-hours a day, seven days a week and perform inspections every 30 minutes for "leaks and any abnormal operations or activities."
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), a member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, last week called on Alyeska to conduct its own internal review of the pipeline, in areas such as maintenance and leak detection, to ensure its operating safely.
Alyeska said the company would hire a third party to conduct an independent review of TAPS after Alaska State Rep. David Guttenberg (D-Fairbanks), who has been critical of the company's cost-cutting measures, said Alyeska could not be trusted to investigate itself.
Anonymous Email Sparks Probe
The investigation conducted by Thebaud and Diecker into the safety issues at Alyeska was sparked by an anonymous three-page email sent to BP's Office of the Ombudsman last December by an Alyeska employee identified as "Afraidaspill."
In that letter, Afraidaspill wrote that Alyeska's Employee Concerns Program (ECP) "is non functional" and that was one of the reasons BP's Office of the Ombudsman was initially contacted about the safety and budgetary issues. The email noted that BP's Deputy Ombudsman, Billie Garde, an attorney, had previously represented Alyeska whistleblowers. Garde also formerly worked for Alyeska.
Thebaud's report said BP's ombudsman's office then sent Afraidaspill's email to Alyeska's general counsel and, in February, attorneys for TAPS' owners directed Morgan, Lewis & Bockius "to conduct this privileged, independent investigation on behalf of Alyeska ... without guidance, direction, or oversight from Alyeska management."
Thebaud and Diecker conducted 66 interviews with Alyeska executives, directors, managers, supervisors and "individual contributors" during the course of their investigation and obtained 200 internal company documents from a senior research analyst in Alyeska's legal department. The questions asked were based on a review of the documents, says the report, which is marked "attorney-client privilege."
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