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Cook Inletkeeper
Oil
& Gas Transportation and Infrastructure
The Cook
Inlet watershed is laced with an aging oil and gas
infrastructure which includes 16 offshore oil and gas platforms,
several onshore wells, over 1,000 miles of oil/gas pipelines, a
refinery, an LNG plant, and a major petrochemical facility.
Aging pipelines routinely leak oil and other contaminants into
Cook Inlet’s fisheries. Every year since 2002, Inletkeeper has
released an important report highlighting the deficiencies in
Cook Inlet pipeline oversight, which has greatly reduced
pipeline leaks and spills over the past 4 years.
In addition
to pipeline spills, Cook Inlet faces threats from oil tanker
spills. Cook
Inlet remains the only major port in North America that lacks
tug escorts for laden tankers, despite the region’s notorious
tides, ice and navigational conditions. In February 2006, the
tanker Seabulk Pride ran aground in Cook Inlet’s richest
salmon and beluga whale habitat. While the double hull tanker
was fortuitously pulled off the beach without leaking its 5
million gallon cargo, the incident cracked the vessel’s hull and
highlighted major shortcomings in Cook Inlet spill response
capabilities. Accordingly, there is an unprecedented window of
opportunity to press for powerful tug boats to ensure tankers
retain their cargo, in a region still recovering from the
devastating effects of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill.
Additionally, routine tankers discharges introduce invasive
species into Cook Inlet, which have the potential to out-compete
native species and alter the marine ecosystem. Over a dozen
invasive species have been identified in Kachemak Bay in the
past two years, and ballast water from oil tankers is a prime
suspect.
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