Slick planning aims to contain oil spills on Columbia River

Ten to 15 times a week, a train carrying 3.5 million gallons of oil rolls within feet of the Columbia River.

It’s enough to fill five Olympic-sized swimming pools.

A derailment and oil spill could mean economic and environmental disaster for any communities along the river.

That’s why a collection of public agencies and private contractors are spending two days testing the spill response plans of BNSF Railway and oil company Andeavor.

The Andeavor pipeline, which carries oil from Salt Lake City to Spokane, crosses the river between Washington and Oregon.

Officials with the Washington State Department of Ecology joined others Wednesday from the federal Environmental Protection Agency and the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality in watching the drills at Hat Rock State Park near Hermiston.

BNSF is the first rail company in the state on the verge of complying with a 2015 state law requiring railways carrying oil through the state to have plans for oil spills into the water.

The plan lays out how the railroad will respond, what the contractors they will use and their oil train routes.

On Wednesday and Thursday, state ecology officials along with employees from the National Response Corporation and the Marine Spill Response Corporation were conducting one of three annual tests of BNSF’s plan, along with testing Andeavor’s plans.

David Byers, Ecology’s spill response manager, said the drills and plans can help minimize the damage if there is a spill.

He was with the unified command team that responded to a train derailment near Mosier, Ore., in June 2016. Eleven train cars from a 96-car Union Pacific train jumped the tracks west of the town and caught fire, dumping 47,000 gallons of oil. About 13,000 gallons flowed into a nearby wastewater treatment plant and a small amount entered the river.

“I saw so many things happen well in Mosier that were the result of preparedness efforts in the entire service communities,” he said. “For example, the very first oil containment boom ... was pulled there by the Yakama Nation, and it was a boom that was provided by the Department of Ecology.”

The state had donated the boom and provided the training to use it in 2007.

While not a lot of the oil entered the river, having the equipment available and plans for deploying it helped prevent it from spreading.

Oil responses generally focuse first on trying to cut off the flow of oil into the water, then working to contain the spill. Then they look to keep it away from sensitive areas.

During this week’s exercises, the companies were practicing stringing booms between islands. The yellow booms are designed to keep the oil away from the sensitive shoreline which is home to the insects that provide food for fish.

Oil also can damage boats using the nearby marina.

The Marine Spill Response Corporation, a nonprofit organized in 1990, showed off its latest piece of equipment. Called the current buster, the V-shaped boom allows the company to scoop oil out of the water four times faster than traditional booms.

Ecology will give the companies suggestions for improvements.

“We know where their plan might be weak, ... and we’ll design an exercise around those areas where it might not hold up so well,” Byers said. “If we find weaknesses and make improvements, then the following year we’ll do the same thing again.”

This story was originally published September 27, 2017 at 6:41 PM with the headline "Slick planning aims to contain oil spills on Columbia River."