Legislative Action Alert: Support Oil Transport Safety

— from the League of Women Voters of the San Juan Islands —

Graphic courtesy of Friends of the San Juans. Feature graphic from Homer (Alaska) Historical Museum, extrapolating from the 11 million gallon spill from the Exxon Valdez, 1989

The Oil Safety Transportation Bill SB 6269 will be given a hearing Thursday, tomorrow. The chair of the committee, of the Energy, Environment and Technology Committee, is Senator Reuven Carlyle (Reuven.Carlyle@leg.wa.gov)

Since this bill is so important to the environment of the San Juans we are sending a second plea to you to contact the chair of the committee in addition to Senator Kevin Ranker.  Following is a form letter you can use if you desire or write your own.  LET Olympia know there is support for this bill in the San Juans!

RE: SB 6269 Strengthening oil transportation safety. Prime Sponsors Senator Ranker (40th)

Dear Senator Carlyle and members of the Senate Energy, Environment and Technology Committee,

As members of the 40th District, our San Juan Islands community sees the growing threat of crude oil transport to our health, safety, natural resources, and livelihoods, we support SB 6269 to strengthen oil transportation safety and oil spill prevention for Puget Sound and Salish Sea waters.

From an economic perspective, Washington State’s Salish Sea helps drive $20 billion in economic activities.  We are host to people from all over the world who come here specifically to witness the Southern Resident Orcas in the beautiful natural environment of the San Juan Islands.

Washington is witnessing a shift in how crude oil is moving through our state to a more complex, and potentially at a much greater volume, system via rail, pipelines, and vessels.  The crude oil of today and the future comes from Canadian tar sands and mid-western Bakken crude and is more challenging to handle safely, clean up any potential spill, and transport without impacting the health of our communities, waterways, and wildlife. It is critical to ensure our state’s oil spills program is adequately funded and equipped with the right tools and resources to protect Puget Sound economic sectors, communities, waterways, and wildlife from this rapidly growing threat of oil spills.

Key elements of SB 6269 include:

Secure Stable and Reliable Funding for Oil Spill Prevention and Preparedness Work:

• Ensure all modes of moving oil are taxed fairly. Pipelines now provide up to 40% of the overall oil moving in Washington, yet oil arriving by pipelines is not taxed in the same way as oil moving by rail or marine vessel.
• Increase the barrel tax to be more consistent with the level of California, address the current funding gap as well as create a strong foundation for future needs.

Fully Implement Marine Protections:

• Direct the state to adopt rules that strengthen Puget Sound/Salish Sea protections from situations where oils submerge and sink, which are particularly difficult to clean up.
• Hire new inspectors to conduct specialized reviews of oil transfers and vessel inspections.

Strengthen Protection Tools:

• Identify recommendations for additional safety measures needed, including how to address ongoing threat of barge traffic and risk of new tanker traffic carrying heavy oils, tar sands (otherwise known as like diluted bitumen).
• Conduct a transboundary summit for Salish Sea protections.

A spill in these waters would risk the irretrievable loss of the critically endangered Southern Resident Killer Whale population that is teetering at only 76 individuals.  To put the risk in perspective, the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1984 spewed 11 million gallons of oil into Prince William Sound, killing up to a quarter-million seabirds and thousands of marine mammals. At least 22 orcas died and a local population known as the Chugach Transients was devastated by the spill, with nine individuals disappearing immediately after the spill and six more shortly after. Twenty-nine years later, the Chugach orcas are functionally extinct, with no reproductive females left alive, no calves observed since the spill, and only seven individuals surviving.

SB 6269 offers a window of opportunity establish a stable and reliable funding source for the state’s oil spills program and protect Washington’s communities, economic sectors, waterways, and Puget Sound’s iconic wildlife.

I urge you to support SB 6269 concerning oil spills prevention.

Respectfully,