PORT ANGELES — The three oil spill response teams based in Port Angeles make the spill response operation on the Strait of Juan de Fuca the nation’s most heavily staffed.
It’s not only because of a greater risk of an oil spill — such as the 5,690-barrel spill in Port Angeles Harbor exactly 25 years ago today — but because of the relatively remote location of the North Olympic Peninsula, said the area response manager of the Marine Spill Response Corp. on Monday.
Craig Cornell, who spoke to a Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce audience of about 45 on Monday, said the area’s remote location coupled with the amount of equipment stored here led to the staffing.
“It takes a couple hours to get out here,” he noted.
It is poised along the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the busy watery highway for freighters from the Pacific Rim and tankers on the Trans Alaskan Pipeline System, or TAPS, route.
In 1990, five years after the single-hull tanker Arco Anchorage ran aground and spilled oil that drifted from Neah Bay to Dungeness Spit — and one year after the Exxon Valdez spilled its crude in Prince William Sound, Alaska, in 1989 — Congress passed the Oil Spill Pollution Act that created the nonprofit Marine Spill Response Corp., Cornell said.
“It is the largest oil spill organization in the world,” he said.
Nationwide, MSRC has $450 million in equipment to fight oil spills and 482 people on its staff.
“That isn’t very many for the whole country,” Cornell said.
Port Angeles has the most staff in one place, he said.
The station has three crews of six people, each with a supervisor, Cornell said.
Neah Bay also has a crew of three to manage a cutter that is stationed there, he said.
MSRC from here dispatched volunteers and equipment to help in the Gulf Coast oil spill during the summer.
From the Port Angeles and Everett stations, 26 workers headed to Louisiana after a BP LLC oil platform exploded, causing a gusher that continued for three months.
In addition to workers, the organization sent 15,000 gallons of chemical disbursements and about 1,400 feet of fireproof boom, he said.
From as far away as south-central Alaska — 3,100 miles from the spill — experts and portable materials started heading south within days after the April 20 explosion and fire destroyed the Deepwater Horizon offshore rig.
Cornell said he spent four months in the Gulf region.
“I am very glad to be back,” he said.
The spill is estimated to have spewed 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
The North Olympic Peninsula MSRC station has an annual budget of about $2 million, which covers salaries and maintenance of the equipment, Cornell said.
Included in its equipment, funded mainly by the petroleum carrier industry, are:
• 18 oil-skimming vessels.
• Two barges.
• 137,212 feet — nearly 26 miles — of boom.
• Three fire boom systems.
• A telecommunications suite.
In 2009, the organization began training volunteers in wildlife rehabilitation.
A wildlife volunteer training session is scheduled for Jan. 29 in Sequim.
The time and location weren’t available Monday.
“We usually have about 100 people show up and they learn more about wildlife rehabilitation,” Cornell said.
“We teach them what are the best methods, and we also do one training session a year in conjunction with the Coast Guard in hazardous waste operations trainings.”
People attending must sign up in advance, Cornell said.
For more information or to sign up, phone 360-417-5437.
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Reporter Paige Dickerson can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at paige.dickerson@peninsuladailynews.com.
