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Natech Accident
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Type
Natech Accident
Date
1989/09/18
Natural Hazard
Hurricane Hugo, United States, 1989
Site
Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority, United States
Status
Published

Units Involved

  1. Name
    Storage tanks
    Type
    Storage: Atmospheric storage tank
    Description
    54,000-barrel storage tank (contaning No. 6 fuel oil) and a small storage tank located on the facility approximately 250 feet from the shoreline.
  2. Name
    Steel containment walls
    Type
    Auxiliary: Other
    Description
    Storage tanks were surrounding by steel containment walls.

Event Sequences

  1. Name
    Damage of the steel containment walls
    Unit
    2. Steel containment walls
    Description
    The force of the hurricane destroyed the steel containment wall surrounding this storage tank and, in so doing, ruptured a discharge line/pipe near the bottom of the tank.
    Substances Involved
    1. Name
      No. 6 Fuel oil
      Involved Quantity
      1678429 lt
      Potential Quantity
      6438985 lt
      Description
      No. 6 fuel oil is a heavy product with an API gravity that ranges from 7 to 14.
    Contributing Factors
    Equipment: Component malfunction:
    An open valve had permitted the oil to escape through the broken pipe.
    Initiating EventCritical EventMajor Event
    Component (Structural): Complete collapse
    The force of the hurricane destroyed the steel containment walls surrounding the storage tanks.
    		-
    Event Sequence: Oil spill
  2. Name
    Oil spill
    Unit
    1. Storage tanks
    Description
    The hurricane spawned a major oil spill at the Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority (VI WAPA) facility.
    Initiating EventCritical EventMajor Event
    Component (Non-structural): Pipe break / damage
    10 inch discharge pipe near the bottom of the small tank was ruptured as a consequence of the damaged steel containment wall.
    Event Sequence: Damage of the steel containment walls
    Release: Liquid release to ground
    Due to the pipe breaking and the tank damage, a total of 14,076 barrels escaped from 54,000-barrel storage tank between September 18 and 25, filling its containment area.
    Release: Liquid release to water body
    The sloped earthen containment around the base of the tank was full of oil. The damaged wall has allowed the oil to overflow the containment area and to spill into the sea. Approximately 1,000 barrels overflowed the containment area and entered
    the water.
    Dispersion: Substance in / on water
    Thursday's overflight by an MSO observer revealed about 2,000 gallons of oily product along the shoreline to the west of the VI WAPA facility.

Weather Conditions

Dominant Wind Direction
East
Description
The oil was driven into the sandy beaches by strong easterly winds and longshore currents.

Emergency Response

Response Planning
Emergency response plan takes Natech events into consideration: No
Emergency response plan is sufficient in taking Natech events into consideration: No
Difficulties in Response to the Natural Hazard
Insufficient personnel and equipment to respond to both emergencies: Yes
Natech event prevents access of personnel to natural hazard affected area: No
Natech event prevents efficient operation of personnel in the natural hazard affected area: Yes
Difficulties in Response to the Natech Event
Insufficient personnel and equipment to respond to both emergencies: Yes
Response to the Natech Event
Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority (VIWAPA), Marine Safety Office (MSO), and U.S. Coast Guard Atlantic Area Strike Team (LAST) personnel were employed to the response procedures. They placed sand-based containment trenches, berms, and waterborne booms to divert oil to a diesel storage tank containment pit and to contain the oil that was flowing to the beach. These berms had contained much of the leaking oil and for some time no more oil was observed entering the water. However, oil began to leak through trenches, proceeding down the sloping base toward the shoreline.
Vacuum trucks were used to remove the oil. This was pumped for recovery (at a rate of 1000 barrels per hour) to a Hess Oil Virgin Islands Corporation (HOVIC) tank barge using the repaired discharge pipeline. The oil containment level lowered three feet in three hours, thus on September 25, the leak has been located and stopped.

Consequences

Human Health Impacts
Symptoms of distress due to oil exposure, including exaggerated preening behavior and tremors, were observed.
Environmental Zones Impacted
  • Shore (e.g. beach, dune, marsh land)
  • Off-shore (e.g. estuary, sea)
Environmental Impacts
- Three miles of sand beaches were heavily oiled as deep as two feet in some places.
- No significant amounts of oil were observed adhering to living coral reefs.
- Localized mortalities were observed in crustaceans and other small animals in the littoral zone.
- Lightly oiled seabirds were observed, which were seen to be capable of flight.
- No dead fish or animals were reported.
- Tarballs have continued to appear to the shoreline four months after the incident.
On-site Response and Remediation Costs
1.2 M USD
Economic Impacts
FEMA Damage Survey Report (DSR) became the instrument in guaranteeing $1.2 million to cover containment, recovery, cleanup, and disposal.
Community Disruption
For humanitarian reasons, prisoners allegedly released and roamed about the island freely, adding to social disruption and posing a physical security threat to response personnel.

Remedial Activities

Decontamination Activities
- Rocky areas and waterfront piers were cleaned with hydro-blasting treatment. 30,000 cubic yards of sand were removed from three miles of beach. Four hundred people were hired for manual beach cleanup. Front-end loaders skimmed contaminated layers of sand from long stretches of beach. Beaches were considered "oil-free" after 60 straight days of manual cleaning.
The Scientific Support Coordinator (SSC) of U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) recommended that very heavily oiled sand be removed from the island, for disposal in an approved landfill.

- All of the oiled solids, with the exception of the contaminated sands, were transported by barge to
Puerto Rico and disposed of in an authorized landfill.

- The 30,000 cubic yards of contaminated sand were collected in seven temporary storage fields. A plan was approved to remove the oiled sand to an approved St. Croix landfill. The oiled sand would be treated by incineration and made available for use in producing asphalt for road construction.
Remediation Activities
Five thousand feet of booms (i.e., two-foot high, expandiboom, and absorbent booms) were deployed in the area surrounding VIWAPA, using winds and currents as an advantage in their deployment. Vacuum trucks were used to pump the oil to a HOVIC tank barge using a repaired discharge pipeline. This oil was delivered to HOVIC facility on the south side of St. Croix for recovery.
Restoration Activities
The landfarming technique was used to allow the natural biodegradation of the oil in the remaining sand. This method is faster than to leave the sand in mounds on the beach and reduces the amount of sand hauled off the island and thus the sand removal/replacement cost.

Lessons Learned

Lessons Learned on Equipment
Many island's infrastructure, such as potable water, electricity, and sanitation facilities, were also destroyed by the hurricane and hampered response efforts. Thus, mobile satellite communications were critical to the success of the response.
Lessons Learned on Organisational Aspects
- Based on an overflight of St. Croix by MSO San Juan investigators on Wednesday morning (20 September), it was difficult to distinguish from the air the oil spill from the earthen base around the tank. Later on that day, it was reported by Coast Guard cutters on the scene that a potential major oil spill in Christiansted began reaching the Coast Guard in San Juan.

- For humanitarian reasons, prisoners allegedly released and roamed about the island freely, adding to social disruption and posing a physical security threat to response personnel. Adequate physical security must be provided for pollution responders, with particular care given to potentially vulnerable targets such as contractor finance personnel maintaining large payrolls on the scene.

-The Oil Pollution Act of 1990, signed into law on August 18, 1990, is expected to result in implementing regulations which will enhance federal response capabilities by authorizing the OSC to access the new Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund (Oil Fund) for discharges that, previously, may have been
excluded.

- Industry and government will continue to work toward preventing a super-catastrophic discharge, as worst-case scenarios and contingency planning may be exceeded.
Lessons Learned on Mitigation Measures
Political pressure to emphasize activities of beach cleanup crews may have interfered with the discharge and containing and recovering all floating oil.
Lessons Learned on Emergency Response Aspects
- With Puerto Rico about 1,500 miles away from the Coast Guard AtLantic Area Strike Team (LAST) headquarters in Mobile, an immediate expertise is generally not able to arrive on scene in the Caribbean for about 24 hours. In this particular response, it was just about 24 hours from the time LAST members were requested until they arrived in San Juan in the late afternoon of September 21.

- The expertise and equipment provided by LAST members were essential in securing the source of the discharge, deploying containment booms, recovering much of the floating oil, and supervising the activities of the clean-up contractor. LAST members' accomplishments at the VI WAPA spill
clearly demonstrated that the NSF is an important resource during emergency pollution response efforts.
ID: 54, Created: Vincenzo ARCIDIACONO, 2014-09-19 12:19:39 – Last Updated: Kyriaki GKOKTSI, 2023-10-17 10:49:30

Attachments

NoDescriptionFile Size
1.MAJOR OIL SPILLS CAUSED BY HURRICANE HUGO, ST. CROIX, U.S. VIRGIN ISLAND 1.20MB
2.Oil Spill Case Histories 1.73MB
Last update: 2024/04/17 | Top