Anchorage, AK : Tanker-truck crashes and spills an increasing worry on Alaska highways on Monday, November 21st 2016
Federal and state regulators in Alaska say they're working to stem what has been a growing number of tanker-truck accidents in recent years — including three big rollovers since September that dumped thousands of gallons of diesel fuel into woods and wetlands.
Residents in towns along the Richardson Highway where those and many other spills have occurred say they worry an out-of-control fuel tank will slam into traffic or damage fish habitat with a spill, including the salmon-rich Copper River with its prized fisheries.
Observers blame the wrecks on factors such as warming winters that increasingly glaze roads with ice, plus less highway maintenance amid Alaska's fiscal crisis and human errors by truck drivers and other motorists.
But double-tanker-truck traffic is also up since 2009, when state regulators required that ultra-low sulfur diesel be trucked to the North Slope oil fields to be used there, in line with federal regulations implemented in 2006 elsewhere in the U.S. The rules required use of the new fuel to replace diesel fuel with air-polluting high sulfur oxide emissions.
In 2005, major North Slope oil producers BP and ConocoPhillips signed an agreement with the state to manufacture the newly required diesel from crude oil on the North Slope starting in 2008, in exchange for the state supporting delayed implementation of the federal requirement, according to the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation.
But in 2007, ConocoPhillips told reporters it would not manufacture the fuel on the Slope — a move requiring a costly upgrade of a small refinery there — after the state passed an oil-production tax under then-Gov. Sarah Palin.
Ultra-low sulfur diesel has been produced in Alaska at two refineries, one in Valdez and the other in Kenai.
Many of the rollovers have occurred on the Richardson Highway in part because fuel headed north from the Petro Star refinery in Valdez travels by that road, officials said. Ultra-low sulfur diesel shipped north from the Tesoro refinery in Nikiski can travel to Fairbanks by pipeline and railroad, reducing the need for fuel-truck hauls up the Seward and Parks highways.
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Tanker-truck crashes and spills an increasing worry on Alaska highways