A 1990 Law Passed After Exxon Valdez Had A Hand In Baltimore Response
Key portions of the emergency response to the DALI striking the Key Bridge at the Port of Baltimore last Tuesday morning can be tied to the Oil Pollution Act of 1990. The Oil Pollution Act of 1990, which was passed 34 years ago, significantly impacted the emergency response to the DALI striking the Francis Scott Key Bridge at the Port of Baltimore. The law requires the shipmaster on all ships entering and exiting U.S. ports to have an emergency plan that includes the name of a marine salvage company approved by the US Coast Guard. This included Resolve Marine, which will be tasked with clearing the channel and building a new bridge. Clearing the channel for export-import trade could be resolved within weeks or years, but it will cost billions of dollars. The Port of Maryland, one of the nation's top 10 seaports by value and tonnage, is yet to resume. The American Salvage Association (ASAS), established shortly after the Exxon Valdez ran aground and gave the U.K. Coast Guard the responsibility for overseeing its implementation.
Published : a month ago by Ken Roberts in Environment
Key portions of the emergency response to the DALI striking the Francis Scott Key Bridge at the Port of Baltimore last Tuesday morning can be tied to a law passed 34 years ago, the Oil Pollution Act of 1990.
That’s the federal law passed after the oil tanker Exxon Valdez ran aground in Alaska in 1989, spilling more than 10 million gallons of oil into Price William Sound.
For example, under provisions of the law, the shipmaster on all ships entering and exiting U.S. ports is required to have an emergency plan that, among other things, includes the name of a marine salvage company approved by the U.S. Coast Guard.
In this case, a call from the shipmaster activating its plan went to a Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based company, Resolve Marine, which had been previously contracted to handle any emergency involving the DALI. The insurer is also quickly tied in.
Resolve Marine will be, among other things, charged with clearing the channel. While that will not be inexpensive or simple, building a new bridge will be both quite expensive and quite complex.
Clearing the channel to allow the port to resume export-import trade could very well be resolved in weeks and not years. Building a new bridge, on the other hand, will definitely be measured in years and not months — and in billions of dollars.
There is no question that it will be done, however.
The Port of Baltimore is one of the nation’s top 10 seaports by both value and tonnage, one of the fastest-growing over the last decade, and one that leads the nation in a host of export and import categories. It topped $60 billion in two-way trade for the first time in 2021, $70 billion in 2022 and $80 billion in 2023.
That trade came to a grinding halt last Tuesday and has yet to resume.
But thanks to what the industry refers to simply as OPA-90, Resolve Marine would have been on the move just hours after the crash, before dawn, according to Mike Dean.
Dean is the new and only second executive director of the American Salvage Association, which was established shortly after the Valdez ran aground and in response to OPA-90. It gave the U.S. Coast Guard the responsibility for overseeing its implementation. The Coast Guard sought input from the shipping community, and that included those in marine salvage.
The marine salvage industry is not particularly large, as you might imagine. Resolve Marine is one of seven companies that are so-called “general members” of the association. All seven have met the standards of the Coast Guard and been approved, though membership is not a requirement for approval.
Resolve Marine’s CEO and president, Joe Farrell III, is the new president of the board of directors for the association.
Its goal is to professionalize the salvage and firefighting response capabilities, whether that’s in cases like what happened in Baltimore or in cases far less dangerous or life-threatening.
In fact, when that emergency plan is activated and that phone call comes, assistance can be as simple as seeking advice over the phone or as serious as ordering a “floating crane” to the accident site to clear a shipping channel, as is the case at the Port of Baltimore.
The former, of course, is the less expensive option, which means there is a financial angle to any decision the shipmaster must make.
Those companies approved by the Coast Guard to lead the salvage effort don’t necessarily have all the equipment or expertise for every incident. Or they might not have it available or have it close by. In that case, dozens of subcontractors, a number of them ASA Corporate Association Members, are enlisted to assist. All told, the ASA has about 80 member companies, Dean said.
With the Port of Baltimore, there are several issues:
• Can officials account for all containers with hazardous materials?
• What steel and other materials from the bridge have to be removed from the ship and the shipping channel, which is at least 50-feet deep, a depth that allows it to accommodate ever-larger post-Panamax ships?
• When can the DALI can be moved safely from the channel and where should it go? Back to the port? Somewhere else?
With this incident, however, there is talk within the industry of the need for OPA-90 to move beyond oil.
Firefighting on a ship is different from fighting a fire on land, said Dean. It requires different training and skills. Another issue: Because there wasn’t an electric car industry in the 1980s, there was no concern with lithium batteries, which are highly flammable. How does the use of much larger “post-Panamax” ships affect how bridges are built?
“No one can deny the success of OPA-90,” Dean, the new association director said in an interview. For 40 years before starting with ASA, he was a civilian employee of the U.S. Navy’s salvage and diving program, the last 17 years as executive director. “But it’s focused on oil. It’s time to work with legislators. There are new risks.”