Cost Benefit Study for Oil Spill Prevention

The USCG has issued its Regulatory Assessment: Use of Tugs to Protect Against Oil Spills in the Puget Sound Area. The assessment focuses on the risk of underway accidents leading to large oil spills involving cargo oils from tankers and tank barges, and bunker fuels from commercial vessels of 300 gross tons or greater. The primary geographic focus of the study is the Strait of Juan de Fuca and coastal waters within a 60 nautical mile radius of the entrance to the Strait. The purpose of the Regulatory Assessment is to: Assess the costs and benefits of a range of risk management alternatives to mitigating oil spillage; Qualitatively assess the environmental and economic impact of various spill scenarios; and Assess the impact of risk management alternatives on small business. Eight alternatives for preventing and mitigating oil spills in the study region were evaluated, including the Internation Tug of Opportunity System (ITOS), five alternatives for expanded tug escort requirements and two alternatives for a prepositioned dedicated rescue tug. These alternatives are designed to reduce the likelihood of collisions, powered groundings and/or drift groundings. The relative effectiveness of each risk management alternative in averting collisions, powered groundings and/or drift groundings was determined and weighed against the baseline for barrels of oil spillage averted for the period 2000-2025. The net cost effectiveness for the eight risk management alternatives is definted in terms of dollars per barrel of oil not spilled for each of the eight risk management alternatives. The study concluded the adoption of new measures for mitigating oil spills in the geographic area of concern would increase the estimated interval of a spill greater than 10,000 gallons from 3.6 years to five years, which represents a 30 percent improvement in risk reduction from oil spills. The pollution averted by ITOS is determined to be significantly less than the other risk management alternatives considered, but - because of ITOS' relatively low cost - is the most cost effective option available. The most cost effective of the escort options would be to extend the escort requirements for single hull tankers to the offshore entrance of the Strait od Juan de Fuca from its current position east of Pt. Dungeness (a distance of about 70 miles). The rescue tug options call for a tug permanently stationed at the entrance of the Strait of Juan de Fuca to assist vessels with power or steering failures. The low probability of drift groundings compared to other types of accidents limits the effectiveness of resuce tugs, but it is assumed the tug will also escort laden tank vessels.