On April 20th, Governor Chris Gregoire signed landmark legislation that significantly advances protection of Washington State’s environment, economy and cultural resources from the impacts of a potential major oil spill.  Seattle Audubon volunteers and staff worked hard advocating for this important bill, and we applaud the Legislature and Governor for ensuring passage of House Bill 1186.

As the 2010 Gulf oil spill reminded us, catastrophic oil spills can and do happen, and the consequences of failing to adequately prepare for them is severe.  And as the Exxon Valdez spill in Prince William Sound demonstrated, a spill in a confined body of water such as Puget Sound or the lower Columbia River can be even more devastating.

In 2008, the Governor’s Washington Oil Spill Advisory Council (on which Seattle Audubon served) completed an extensive study of the state’s ability to respond to a major spill.  The Council reviewed the type and amount of spill response equipment that could be brought to a spill in a timely fashion and whether there were enough trained personnel available to operate the equipment.  The results of the study were clear: Washington State is not prepared for a major spill.  There is an urgent need to dramatically improve our state’s ability to respond to a significant oil spill.  It’s not a question of if we will have such an oil spill, it’s a matter of when such a spill will occur and whether we are prepared to respond to it.

The marine waters of Washington, including Puget Sound, are utilized by more than 75 bird species that could be adversely impacted by an oil spill, with tens of thousands of individual birds at risk from a spill.  In addition, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) scientists have stated that of all the threats posed to Orca whales in the region, the threat of a major oil spill is the single greatest risk to the species.  The fresh water ecosystems of the Columbia and Snake Rivers also support huge numbers of birds, fish and other wildlife that would be directly impacted by an oil spill.

Beyond the environmental devastation, the Department of Ecology determined that a major spill would also cost 165,000 jobs and $10.8 billion in economic impacts.  This does not include individual claims or environmental restoration efforts.

House Bill 1186 provides a framework to significantly improve how we protect the ecological health of our state’s aquatic ecosystems.  By strengthening the state’s existing response planning and preparations, we can reduce those impacts. And while we hope that such preparations are never needed, it is short-sighted to not adequately plan for a tragic spill that is an all-too-real possibility.

The bill directs the Department of Ecology to initiate new rule-making this summer to strengthen our state’s oil spill response capabilities.  This new effort has a specific deadline for new regulations being completed by December 2012.

Seattle Audubon will actively engage in the rule-making process, advocating for requirements on the oil companies to:

• Stockpile spill response equipment locally in Washington to insure that we have enough equipment on hand to respond in challenging environments;
• Expand spill response “drills” to test assumptions contained in current plans and to make revisions based upon the outcome of the drills; and
• Train and equip local personnel (such as commercial fishermen) to directly assist in the cleanup of oil spills.