Trans Alaska Pipeline-  The Trans Alaska pipeline Sys­tem, or TAPS, runs from Prud­hoe Bay, Alaska to Valdez, Alaska, cross­ing five major trib­u­taries of the Cop­per River on the south­ern fifth of the pipeline.  The pipeline is aging with no solid con­tin­gency plan for clean­ing a spill on the river.  The response mea­sure is to stretch boom across the river, with most of the oil entrain­ing under­neath the boom.  There is no good way to respond and clean a spill on the Cop­per River.  The Cop­per salmon runs would be dev­as­tated by a spill, as would the liveli­hoods of Cop­per River com­mer­cial fish­er­men, dip­net­ters, fish­wheel­ers, and other stake­hold­ers.   The crit­i­cal habi­tat along the Cop­per River Cor­ri­dor and Cop­per River Delta would be impos­si­ble to clean out of the silt, marshes, and wet­lands in the path of the oil down­stream.  Com­mer­cial and sub­sis­tence users of the entire region could be put out of busi­ness.  The Cop­per River and it’s delta are not only crit­i­cal to humans and salmon, but a diverse array of mam­mals, inver­te­brates, and mil­lions of water­fowl and shore­birds that make stops on their way north or call the region home.

Spill pre­ven­tion is the only key.  Visual checks on the pipeline indi­cate that the pipeline is aging and cor­rod­ing.  The pipeline is also sub­ject to occa­sional shoot­ings, which take days to stop the leak through the bul­let holes. In 2001, a drunk shot the pipeline with a .338 rifle, north of Fair­banks. Oil sprayed about 75 feet out out of the hole with approx­i­mately 525 lbs of pres­sure per square inch, leak­ing 285,000 gal­lons of crude oil.

Stake­hold­ers and user groups have pushed for an indus­try funded citizen’s over­sight coun­cil to watch­dog the pipeline, but so far have been shut down.

A spill into the Cop­per River is an issue of scary pro­por­tions, and could eas­ily hap­pen.  See what else you can do and check out TRANS-ALASKA PIPELINE SYSTEM (TAPS) CITIZENS’ OVERSIGHT and call your sen­a­tors and rep­re­sen­ta­tives to help cre­ate the citizen’s over­sight coun­cil so civil­ians and users can watch­dog the pipeline and help keep the Cop­per River safe.

 

• Sen­a­tor Albert Kookesh
  Kookesh@legis.state.ak.us
  888–288-3473
• Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Bill Thomas
  Thomas@legis.state.ak.us
  888–461-3732
• Gov­er­nor Sean Par­nel
  www.gov.state.ak.us
   907–465-3500
• Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Don Young
  donyoung.house.gov/con­tact
  202–225-5765
• Sen­a­tor Lisa Murkowski
  murkowski.senate.gov/contact.cfm
  202–224-6665
• Sen­a­tor Mark Begich
  begich.senate.gov
  202–224-3004