Protecting our great Columbia River

Bulk cargo ships at anchor in Astoria, Oregon. Photo courtesy of  Alex 
Butterfield, CC BY 2.0.

Was the mighty Columbia River created by volcanoes, floods and earthquakes, or was it created by Coyote, who according to tribal legend, realized that there were salmon in the ocean and that people needed to eat them?

Did Coyote stage a large battle with a great beaver, backing the beaver up into the Cascade Mountains, where the beaver tail scraped out the Columbia River Gorge? Is this what opened up a channel from the ocean to bring the salmon to the people?

This tribal legend told in oral tradition, taken from a Northwest Power and Conservation Council Columbia River history report, is just one example of the rich cultural lore associated with the river.

Today, the river is this and a whole lot more. It’s a vital shipping corridor that benefits both Washington and Oregon, and our regional and international economies.

Keeping an eye on vessel traffic

Here at the Department of Ecology, we are watching vessel traffic on the river with an eye to protect it from oil spills.

Each year, hundreds of oil-carrying vessels enter the Columbia River to deliver more than a billion gallons of gasoline, jet fuel, and other petroleum products to ports in Washington and Oregon.

Chemical tanker heading to sea from the mouth of the Columbia River. Photo 

courtesy of Bruce Fingerhood, CC BY 2.0.

The river is a busy corridor. Oil-carrying tankers and barges share space with cargo ships, passenger vessels, recreational boats, and fishing vessels.

A big oil spill could not only harm the river, its shorelines, and the fish and animals that depend on the Columbia’s waters, it could also impact both states’ economies. The river could be closed to vessels that deliver goods and services to communities along the river, interrupting the region’s export of grain and other farm products.

A spill could threaten both Washington’s and Oregon’s rich cultural and historic resources that lie along this vital corridor. Based on 2006 numbers, a large spill could cost Washington $10.8 billion and 165,147 jobs.

Many hands help keep the river safe from vessel mishaps. They include the Lower Columbia Region Harbor Safety committee, the Northwest Area Committee, the Sector Columbia River Area Maritime Security Committee, the Oregon Board of Maritime Pilots, and the U.S Coast Guard.

We recently worked with them all to complete a just-out report on Columbia River vessel traffic safety for the Washington Legislature.

A key finding is an obvious point – while the likelihood of a major oil spill on the Columbia River is low, the consequences are high to both Washington and Oregon.

Why we did the evaluation

As our energy picture changes, new oil-handling projects may come online that would increase the number of oil tankers transiting the river. Concerned about the potential increased risk of spills, the Washington Legislature directed us in 2015 to assess vessel traffic management and safety within and near the mouth of the Columbia River to determine:

• The need for tug escorts for vessels transporting oil as cargo
• Tug capabilities to ensure safe escort
• The highest level of protection that can be attained using technology, staffing, training, operational methods, while considering cost and achievability.

Spill prevention is a collaborative effort

Our evaluation showed us that the river has a robust set of safety standards already in place to reduce the risks of accidents and oil spills, but that more could be done to ensure we’re prepared should worst come to worst. Some of these safety measures are mandated by state and federal laws and regulations, while others are voluntary. For example, all tank vessels operating on the Columbia are required to have double hulls, reducing the likelihood of spills from collisions and groundings, but if tanker traffic increases, tug escorts could provide added protection to reduce oil spill risks.

Many partners participated as we conducted the evaluation, and together we generated a common framework for understanding oil spill risks and identifying potential risk reduction measures. A key recommendation in the report is that existing collaborative maritime safety programs are our best opportunity to prevent oil spills on the river and bar.

Keeping our spill prevention safety net strong

The safety evaluation is a valuable step in protecting both Washington and Oregon against future oil spills. The river is valuable and worthy of our attention. Just ask Coyote, the beaver, the salmon, and the people.

Read the full report online, access a brief focus sheet, and find additional information about our risk assessment work on our website.


By Sandy Howard, Spills Program

Are we ready for next big oil spill?

Lack of secure funding threatens our ability to test spill response capabilities and a lot more

Aerial view of Seattle from Ecology's marine monitoring 

program, Eyes Over Puget Sound.

While Seattle sleeps, an environmental catastrophe unfolds in Seattle’s Elliott Bay.

A powerful ship loses its steering, and in the ink-black, pre-dawn of October 12, it collides with a tank barge pumping fuel into a giant container ship.

Several of the barge’s side tanks are punctured. A million gallons of oil spills into Puget Sound. Potentially, two million more gallons could quickly spill.

Oil in water.

Early morning joggers in West Seattle can already smell it. The oil spreads across the bay, coming into contact with the feathers of marine birds. It’s beginning to slime the picturesque beaches of the Seattle shoreline. U.S. Coast Guard officers are already worried. How will they keep open a critical Washington port that delivers food and medicine to the rest of the world?

News helicopters are buzzing overhead. Social media is lighting up. Facebook and Twitter are popping with outraged comments. By midday, protesters line the beaches. Tribal members are dismayed.

How could this happen? The story goes national – international.

This is our biggest nightmare – the kind of catastrophic oil spill we work so hard to prevent and prepare for.

Thankfully, this disaster never happened.

Table-top, worst-case scenario spill drill 
held in Seattle Oct. 12.

In reality, this was a “table top” oil spill scenario we used to test a Seattle company’s oil spill contingency plan. In this case, more than 100 participants gathered Oct. 12 in Seattle to test how well the company and partners could respond to the fictitious spill. Besides the company, other partners participating included the U.S. Coast Guard, Navy, state Department of Fish & Wildlife, a number of environmental contractors, and Ecology. Make no mistake, it was serious business.

Oil spill drills are part of contingency planning in Washington

This drill was literally a test of the company’s oil spill contingency plan, just one of the approximately 35 plans we review and approve for oil facility and commercial vessel operators across the state. We spent months ahead of drill day designing and organizing the drill with the company and other agencies so we could meet specific objectives within the plan.  It will take another couple of weeks to review what we saw at the drill and write our evaluation of the company’s performance.

We drill to help the oil industry be ready for spills

Oiled duck. Photo courtesy WA Dept. of Fish and Wildlife

Outside of a real spill, which we want to avoid, drills are the best way for us to see firsthand the strengths and weakness of these response plans and improve them.

Each of the 35 facility or vessel plans we oversee are required to conduct three drills a year. This means that we design, attend, and write an evaluation for more than 120 drills annually. At many of these, response equipment is deployed – including boats, pre-positioned booming and pre-trained personnel, and contractors. Our oversight and evaluations provide consistent best practices we are able to carry across industry sectors and improve everybody’s plans.

Why it matters

The 2004 Legislature mandated that Washington have a “zero spills” goal, and as a result of everyone's collective work, we have one of the lowest spill rates in the nation. We don’t do this work alone. We work with many partners to make progress towards that goal. The oil industry is a big partner in helping us protect our state’s resources and economy, and to prevent oil spills from occurring.

Washington has a lot at stake. A large spill would change everything. We have one of the world’s most unique marine environments and a thriving economy. However, we live with the constant threat of a major oil spill. More than 20 billion gallons of oil is transported through Washington each year by vessel, pipeline, road, and rail.

Keeping our funding strong

We are working to keep our funding strong. We want to continue to fully participate in oil spill drills with industry.

Based on information reported to Ecology, trains carry approximately
25 percent of crude oil that is transported in Washington.

We also need enough funding to carry out our legislatively directed 2015 Oil Transportation Safety Act. The Act was a significant step forward to protect Washingtonians from new oil spill risks, such as transporting oil by rail.

Without adequate funding, other important spill prevention and preparedness work is also at risk.

We are meeting with industry representatives to enlist their support for funding solutions we have in mind. We have a history of working together to build the successful program we have today.

Together, we want to find a reliable, equitable, ongoing revenue solution to support our oil spill prevention and preparedness work. We look forward to working with the Legislature, the governor’s office, the oil industry, tribes, and all stakeholders to maintain Washington’s spill prevention safety net.

By Sandy Howard, Spills Program

Hoping for the best, preparing for the worst: Increasing our readiness to respond to oil train spills

New, geographically localized oil spill response plans are dramatically improving Washington’s readiness to respond to spills, especially along oil train routes in central and eastern Washington.

In the second quarter of 2017, 14.4 million barrels of crude oil – or almost 605 million gallons – traveled through Washington in 21,139 rail cars.

What's at risk

Many of these rail routes travel along major highways, or run next to rivers or Puget Sound. A major accident or spill could put Washington communities at risk or cause major damage to the environment and the economy.

Our work to prepare for the worst is not new. For decades, we’ve prepared oil spill response plans for Puget Sound and other marine waters to make our state ready for an accident involving tanker ships and refineries. Now, we’re expanding this work to reflect the changing energy picture that’s led to an increasing amount of oil entering our state by railroads and pipelines.

Just three years ago, we had 19 plans that mostly concentrated on protecting shorelines in western Washington. Now, we have 42 plans, and we’ve expanded across the Cascades.

This expansion is a result of the 2015 Oil Transportation Safety Act, and highlights Washington state’s efforts to protect people, the environment and our economy from new oil spill risks.

Six of the new plans cover areas on the east side of the mountains along oil train routes. Five plans in western Washington address potential spills from pipelines and railroads.

Current Geographic Response Plan areas in Washington

Why it matters

Geographic response plans take a lot of the guesswork out of the response during the early hours of a spill. The plans signal where local authorities should place oil containment equipment and which agencies and governments to notify. The plans identify specific actions that can be taken locally to protect bird and fish habitat, wetlands, water intakes, fishing areas, fish hatcheries, boating areas and public parks and beaches, and cultural resources like petroglyphs, ancient tools and fish weirs.

The geographic response plans are also pieces of a larger effort that guides a coordinated response to oil spills in Washington, Oregon and Idaho.

“Geographic response plans build on our focus to prevent oil spills to water and land and are part of our up-front planning that helps us deliver a rapid, aggressive and well-coordinated response to oil and hazardous substance spills wherever they occur,” said Dale Jensen, who manages Ecology’s spills program.

Here are our new and updated plans. You can also see them on our online, interactive map.

New plans

• Lower Skagit River – 150 square miles in Skagit and Snohomish counties
• Lower Yakima River – 676 square miles in Benton, Kittitas, and Yakima counties 
• Nooksack River – 256 miles in Whatcom County
• Palouse – 253 square miles within Adams, Franklin and Whitman counties
• Puyallup-White Rivers – 207 square miles in Pierce in King counties
• Samish River – 102 square miles in Skagit and Whatcom counties
• Stillaguamish – 89 square miles in Snohomish County
• Sumas – 53 square miles in Whatcom County
• Upper Columbia River – 207 square miles in Chelan, Douglas, Grant and Kittitas counties
• Upper Green River – 120 square miles in King County
• Upper Yakima River – 439 square miles in Kittitas and Yakima counties
• Warden Washington – 131 square miles in Grant County
• Washington Deschutes – 312 square miles in Grays Harbor, Lewis and Thurston counties
• Wenatchee – 332 square miles in Chelan County

Updated plans

• Admiralty Inlet –  extends from eastern Strait of Juan de Fuca to Foulweather Bluff
• Hood Canal –  covers 704 square miles and is bounded the Hood Canal Bridge to the north, Quilcene to the west, Seabeck to the east, and Belfair to the south
• Snake River - Ice Harbor – covers a 41-mile reach of the Snake River from the confluence of the Snake and Columbia Rivers to the Lower Monumental Dam

Did you know? 

Our state has one of the lowest oil spill rates in the nation, and one of the most comprehensive spill prevention, preparedness and response programs anywhere. We respond to about 4,000 spills a year. Visit our website to learn more about what we do to prevent, prepare, and respond to oil spills in Washington.

By Sandy Howard, Spills Program