北極漏油應變評估 美政府不及格

The warming climate is melting sea ice, opening U.S. Arctic waters to shipping and oil and gas development, but the National Research Council Committee on Responding to Oil Spills in Arctic Environments warned today that U.S. personnel, equipment, transportation, communication, navigation, and safety resources are not adequate for an Arctic oil spill response.

In a new report released today, “Responding to Oil Spills in the US Arctic Marine Environment” the National Research Council calls this absence of infrastructure a “significant liability” in the event of a large oil spill.

The Arctic poses challenges to oil spill response, such as extreme weather and environmental settings, limited operations and communications infrastructure, a vast geographic area, and vulnerable species, ecosystems, and cultures.

The committee recommends that “carefully controlled field experiments that release oil in the U.S. Arctic be conducted as part of a long-term, collaborative Arctic oil spill research and development program that spans local, state, and federal levels.

It suggests that positioning response equipment such as aerial in situ burn and dispersant capabilities in the region before a spill occurs would provide immediate access to rapid response options.

The U.S. Coast Guard’s presence and performance capacity in the Arctic should be enhanced, the report recommends. The Coast Guard should work with the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation to develop an oil spill training program for local communities and trained response teams in local villages.

They also should integrate local and traditional knowledge of ice and ocean conditions and marine life to enhance oil spill response, the report says.

Given the nearness of U.S. Arctic waters to international territories, communications between command centers, coordinated planning, trans-boundary movement of people and equipment, and identification of translators, should be addressed before an actual spill, the report says.

“High-quality nautical charting is essential for marine traffic purposes and oil spill response in the Arctic. However, shoreline topographic and hydrographic data are mostly obsolete, with limited tide, current, and water level data and very little ability to get accurate positioning and elevation,” the report warns.

“The lack of a U.S. vessel traffic monitoring system for the Arctic creates significant vulnerability for U.S. Arctic missions, including oil spill response, and creates undue reliance on private industry and foreign national systems.”

“Private AIS [Automatic Identification System] receivers are used to track vessels in the Bering Strait and along a large part of Alaska coastal areas, but there are significant gaps in coverage. Consequently, there are numerous regional ‘blind spots’ where an early indication of elevated risks may not be apparent to officials on shore,” warns the committee.

Greenpeace U.S. Arctic Campaigner John Deans commented, “This proves yet again that Arctic drilling is far too risky. The only way to prevent a spill is not to drill in the first place.”

Nearly five million people from around the world have signed the Greenpeace petition to protect the Arctic, calling on governments to create a global sanctuary around the North Pole, and to ban offshore drilling and destructive commercial activity in the fragile Arctic environment.