Shipping Industry Offers Safety Plan

A shipping industry proposal for improving oil-tanker safety calls for outfitting tugs with electronic transmitters so the closest one could be dispatched swiftly to aid a grounded tanker.

The $1.5 million “tug-of-opportunity” proposal is “something we can do reasonably and easily, and we’re going to do it,” said Harry Hutchins, director of the Puget Sound Steamship Operators Association, during a break at a public hearing Tuesday on the plan.

Skeptics said the proposal would do little to avert a disastrous oil spill.

They said the busy Strait of Juan de Fuca lacks many of the protections belatedly imposed in Alaska’s Prince William Sound, where the Exxon Valdez spilled 11 million gallons of crude oil in 1989.

“The waters between the ports of Grays Harbor and Port Angeles are the least protected in Washington state,” said Chad Bowechop, environmental director for the Makah Indian Tribe, in written testimony.

“The fact that there are no pilots, tug escorts or weather restrictions along the entire stretch of water up along the coast … all the way to Port Angeles - needs to be addressed.”

Fred Felleman, an environmentalist with Ocean Advocates in Seattle, scoffed at industry suggestions that the plan was voluntary.

The industry has been working closely with the U.S. Coast Guard to stave off more onerous restrictions that Congress or the Clinton administration might impose, he said.

“The Coast Guard is busy working with the industry to develop a cost-benefit analysis … to conclude what the industry wants it to conclude,” Felleman said.

“This has been a cooked project from the word go. Without any independent oversight, it has no integrity at all.”

Hutchins said the industry plan makes much more sense than stationing a tug at the mouth of the strait to rescue disabled vessels - a proposal the state and several environmentalists made last year.