The Coast Guard, a co-chair of the Alaska Regional Response Team (ARRT), in coordination with four other signatory agencies announced the new policy for the Dispersant Use Plan For Alaska, in Anchorage.
The new policy is more inclusive, comprehensive, and conservative and includes a preauthorization area with a more protective protocol for use of chemical dispersant during responses to spills of crude oil in certain waters offshore of Alaska.
The policy allows for case-by-case decision-making criteria for dispersant use in waters outside the preauthorization area and enhances stakeholder and tribal government involvement in dispersant use decision-making, provisions for a framework to develop dispersant use avoidance areas, compliance with federal species and habitat protection measures, and changes in dispersant efficacy monitoring protocols. Almost all coastal states and territories have dispersant use plans, but such a plan has not existed in Alaska since September 2008.
“This new policy will enable the Coast Guard to ensure there is a regulated dispersant capability in the state of Alaska,” said Mark Everett, Coast Guard 17th District ARRT co-chair. “This allows us to focus on potential spills to U.S. waters from crude oil laden tank vessels bound to or from a U.S. port.”
Dispersants are chemical compounds which, when applied correctly under the right conditions, break crude oils into smaller droplets, reducing the slick’s surface area and threats to surface species, and making the oil droplets much more available to natural microbial degradation. They are not used on small spills or on spills of lighter products (i.e., diesel, gasoline, hydraulic oils, etc.)
Dispersants are needed in Alaska mainly to provide another option when responding to large accidental discharges of certain oils in Alaska’s offshore waters. Mechanical means (i.e., skimmers, boom, sorbent materials) of recovery of oil remain the preferred response methods because they physically remove oil from the environment. However, under certain circumstances dispersants use may be considered when mechanical recovery alone is ineffective or insufficient. Response leaders need dispersants – and other
alternative tools such as burning – available in their ‘toolbox’ for situations when they are the most appropriate response tactic based on a thorough assessment of environmental benefits and impacts.
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Learn more about how chemical dispersion works at ITOPF’s website
