"This was true for engineering as it was for other departments, like environment. Integrity engineers are now co-located in Anchorage with other engineering disciplines and with project personnel, with whom they work closely," Egan said. Additionally, Hostler "felt it was worth it to make the move not just because the company would save $4 million, but because what we would gain as an organization to be together in the same location. Staff who need to physically inspect the 800 mile pipeline can access the pipeline from many locations, including Anchorage which is a transportation hub."
Guttenberg said Egan's statement doesn't make sense.
"Sure, Anchorage is a transportation hub - but it is nowhere near the pipeline," said Guttenberg, who spent 25 years working on the pipeline before entering politics. "Fairbanks is also a transportation hub and it is centrally located ON the TAPS right-of-way. In just about every case it would be quicker for staff to reach a section of pipeline from Fairbanks than from Anchorage."
Moreover, Guttenberg said, "For Alyeska to argue it's more important for these personnel to be physically located with other staff than it is for them to be physically located next to the line is absurd. They have it completely backwards on this, and I think any reasonable person will see it that way."
Egan said TAPS has been "substantially reconfigured" since Malone implemented the move from Anchorage to Fairbanks, 13 years ago, via new automated pump stations and the company no longer needs to have integrity management employees located in the direct vicinity of the pipeline.
One Alyeska employee noted, in response to Egan's statements, "automation at the pump stations has nothing to do with monitoring the integrity of the pipeline system."
"If anything, an aging 35 year old pipeline needs more people nearby monitoring it that it did 10 or 20 years ago," this employee said.
The BP Alaska official agreed.
"There is a cogent argument for closer TAPS attention because of its age and lower flow rate that create new and unique integrity concerns," the BP executive said. "It was the age, the lower flow rates that created the new and unique corrosion opportunities that resulted in the 2006 oil spills on the North Slope. There needs to be more public attention on this because the environment is so bad for BP right now it is an opportunity to press the case as yet another example of how BP runs things."
Guttenberg sent a letter to Alaska's Joint Pipeline Office June 14, saying he is "concerned that Alyeska is making changes that leaves Alaskans vulnerable to possible economic and environmental strife.... These cost-cutting measures lead me to believe that Alyeska is on a perilous path considering all the things that can go wrong on a rapidly aging 800 mile pipeline."
"The Deepwater Horizon disaster and the recent spill at pump station 9 on TAPS ought to serve as a wakeup call for everyone involved in overseeing and maintaining the integrity of Alaska's oil and gas infrastructure," Guttenberg said in a letter he sent June 14 to Mike Thompson, the state pipeline coordinator at the Joint Pipeline Office. Guttenberg said he was most concerned that the Joint Pipeline Office has failed to conduct adequate oversight of the way Alyeska operates TAPS and he asked the agency to provide him with a detailed explanation describing the oversight it has conducted in light of the relocation of personnel and the spill at pump station 9. Guttenberg said the Joint Pipeline Office has not yet responded to his query. A spokesperson for the agency did not return calls for comment.
The spill at pump station 9 resulted when oil started to flow back into the tanks, about 100 miles south of Fairbanks and the site of several previous maintenance failures, due to a backup battery system failure. Because the power was out and the facility was unmanned, no one was able to determine the amount of oil that flowed into the tanks, which eventually overflowed and spilled into a containment area at the pump station.
Patricia Klinger, a spokeswoman for the Department of Transportation's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) said in an interview that the circumstances behind the spill are 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."
In an email sent to employees by Joynor, Alyeska's senior vice president of operations, following the meeting with Congressional staffers, said the company determined that the incident was caused by a "combination of causes," including "several technical and design issues" and "a standard process to review procedures either weren't done or were inadequate."
Klinger noted that PHMSA inspectors are scheduled to be in Alaska later this summer to inspect the pipeline and will also "look at [Alyeska's] documents and records" to ensure the company is in compliance.
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