,~---~-~-- D "J:J.I./ ~. F,-Je. : Lessons to be Learned: A-lfASAA The National I)ark Service F/eld Administrative History A-rfA. and Assessment of the EXXON VALDEZ Oil Spill • by Rick S. Kurtz PUlSE RETURN TO: • TECHNICAL INFORMATION CENTER B&WScans, DENVER SERVICE CENTER NATIONAL PARK SERVICE l·Z~·~~ I~~-----------:------ .. I I I • LESSONS TO BE LEARNED: THE NATIONAL PARK SERVICE ADMINISTRATIVE HISTORY AND ASSESSMENT OF THE EXXON VALDEZ OIL SPILL by • Rick S. Kurtz, Historian National Park Service Alaska Regional Office 1995 • r- ------------" TABLE OF CONTENTS • List of Photographs .........."................................ vi Maps ...................................................Vlll Foreword ....................."........................... IX Introduction . xi Acknowledgements . xiv List of Acronyms . xv Chronology of Events . .. xviii Summary .................................................xxi Resource Management Priorities .......................... xxi The NPS Response ................................. xxii Resource Protection . xxiii NPS Tort Investigation, Damage Assessment, and Restoration ............................... xxvi Threa t Miti' gati' on .................................. xxVll .. Interagency Cooperation ............................. xxviii • Final Comments .... xxix Chapter 1. The Institutional Setting ................................ 1 Introduction' . 1 Constitutional Influences ................................ 2 Constraints on Discretionary Authority ........................ 3 Sources of Agency Power and the Decision Making Process . .. 4 Toward a National Natural Resource Management Mandate ..................................... 6 Development of the NPS Mandate .......................... 7 Federal Legislation and Alaska ............................ 9 Chapter 2. Combating the Disaster ................................ 13 The Spill Environment ................................ 13 Whether to Federalize the Spill ........................... 13 Beyond Prince William Sound ........................... 15 NPS Decides to Act .................................. 18 The Two Front War .................................. 21 • III The Katmai Response . • . 24 Resource Protection Officers ............................ 27 Aniakchak . 28 • New Battles on the Bureaucratic Front ...................... 28 The Financial Dilemma . 30 Damage Assessment and the Trustee Process .................. 34 The Tort Investigation ................................ 36 Summer Wrap-up ....................•.............. 39 Chapter 3. Beyond the Early Frenzy . 48 How Clean is Clean . 48 Winter Monitoring on NPS Lands ......................... 49 The Summer Cleanup Program . 54 Winter Monitoring and the 1991 Summer Cleanup ............... 57 Damage Assessment Moves Forward ....................... 59 Restoration ....................................... 66 Reaching Settlement . 69 Department Restructuring and the Post-Settlement Trustee Process . 71 Final Comments ..... " . 75 Chapter 4. Spill Successes and Failures .... 82 Exxon Valdez, The Failed Response .. 82 The National Park Service Response . 84 NPS and Incident Command . 85 • Defensive Booming and RPOs ........................... 87 Pre-Inventory ...................................... 90 Response Efforts Beyond 1989 ........................... 91 How Clean are the Beaches? ............................ 93 The NPS Tort Investigation ............................. 94 The Damage Assessment and Tort Comparison ......... ~ . 97 NPS and the Damage Assessment Process .................... 98 Post-Settlement Restoration ............................ 101 NPS and Restoration ................................ 103 Measuring NPS Restoration Success . .. 107 Spill Linkages .................................... 110 Final Remarks ........"........................... 111 Chapter 5. Confrontation and Cooperation . .. 120 Agency Turf Wars. .. 120 The Bureaucratic Decision Making Process. .. 121 NPS Intra-Agency Conflict ............................ 123 NPS Interjurisdictional Conflict . .. 127 The Transfer of Boyd Evison . .. 131 • IV Resolving the Bureaucratic Conflict ...................... 132 Tracking the Fate of Spilled Oil ........................ 136 Financial Reconciliation ............................. 138 • Final Comments . 150 Chapter 6. Epilogue ....................................... 159 Spill Preparedness Today ............................ 159 Threats to Park Lands .............................. 164 Fulfilling the NPS Policy Mandates ...................... 167 Final Reflections . 169 Appendix: By Timotby Cochrane, A Review of Agency Traditions and Actions During the Spill . 173 NPS Occupational Culture . .. 173 Disaster Behavior ................................. 180 NPS Organization and Adaptation ....................... 189 Glossary . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 197 Bibliograpby .............................................. 201· Suggested Readings ......................................... 209 • Index .................................................. 210 • v LIST OF PHOTOGRAPHS • following page 22: Early oil movement and its impact The stricken tanker Exxon Valdez lies in anchorage at Naked Island. Swift moving water renders boom on a Kenai Fjords stream ineffective. A salmon stream at Kenai Fjords is successfully boomed. A rocky outcropping at Ragged Island's Morning Cove shows the effects of oiling. Two large patches of mousse--storm whipped water in oil emulsion--cling near the coast. Fishing boats made up a large part of the ad hoc fleet assembled to fight the spill. Oil trapped among rocks on a cobblestone beach at Cape Douglas, Katmai. Some of the 7,800 bird carcasses retrieved from the Katmai coast. A red fox scavenges among oil stained rocks in the intertidal zone . • A brown bear falls victim to oil while scavenging along the Katmai coast. following page 30: Implementing the Cleanup A cleanup worker is using high pressure hot water to wash oil of a rock face. A self contained omni-barge equipped with a portable hot water wash-down system is used to rinse oil off an impacted beach. Coast Guard, ADEC, and Exxon officials gather to observe the results of a COREXIT test application. Member of the press gather for a cleanup briefing at the Valdez Civic Center . • vi r-- following page 96: How Clean are the Beaches? • ADEC workers gather samples from a beach segment during the 1989 - 1990 WIMP. Cleanup workers use hand tools, to remove oil from a section of beach at McArthur Pass in Kenai Fjords National Park. An NPS technician takes a sample of weathered oil during a 1992 summer site survey. This weathered oil was found clinging to rocks. during a Kenai Fjords site survey. following page 144: Former Regional Director Boyd Evison Boyd Evison in his office at Rocky Mountain Regional Headquarters. Another long afternoon as the Trustee Council debates a contentious issue. following page 166: Spill Preparedness Today The tanker Arco Independence being loaded with North Slope crude at the Alyeska terminal • in Valdez. A Ship Escort Response Vessel prepares to accompany a laden tanker leaving the Alyeska terminal. Yorktown Clipper, a 257 foot tour boat, struck Geikie Rock on August 18, 1993 at Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve. Abandoned fuel drums at the Lava Lake weather station in Bering Land Bridge National Preserve . • vii LIST 01;' MAPS • following page 26: Map 1. Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Location Map Map 2. Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Areas within National Park System • • viii FOREWORD • My recollections of the many frustrations and few rewards that came with helping manage National Park Service activities in the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill are beginning to dim with time. Not dimming, however, is the deep-gut horror of parks and employees stained by the impossibly sticky, thick, black stuff. The tears have all dried up but wounds are still a little sore and the anger remains. In early April, 1989, my good friend and colleague Dan Hamson and I were sent to Katmai early on to help park staff mobilize resources to deal with what we believed to be the impending strike of oil on park beaches. By the fall of 1989, Dan and I had been given the job of establishing a new division which would administer all of the Service's Exxon Valdez oil spill activities. Sandy Rabinowitch joined us in 1990 to assist with restoration planning. Restoration planning was problematic. No one knew how it would end up. There was little policy and virtually no precedent for what we were doing. We improvised as we went along and did not stop until we transferred out of the Alaska oil spill business in 1992, 1994, and 1995, respectively. We assumed roles in which we were not fully comfortable, but rather grew into. In essence we became the defacto Alaska Region oil spill "experts." Dan and I realized that the Service could benefit from the "whole story" of the NPS's involvement in the oil spill. The good effort by Bill Hanable, in his report on initial response, focused on March through September, 1989 response activities. But there was much more to the story. There was also a significant response season in the summer of 1990 and response participation in 1991. As well, the Service was extensively involved in damage • assessment and restoration activities with the State and Federal Trustees between 1989 and 1994. These were major programs with multi-million dollar opportunities in restoration at stake for the oil spill-affected parks. We took the idea of an expanded oil spill story to Associate Regional Director Paul