
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, April 13, 1990                   TAG: 9004130893
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

LEAKING LINE

WHEN THE decision was made to pipe Prudhoe Bay's oil to Valdez and put it on tankers there, the oil consortium tut-tutted at the idea of spills of crude in Alaskan waters. If by chance there were, they could quickly be cleaned up.

Twelve years later came the Exxon Valdez disaster in Prince William Sound.

When the pipeline was being laid across and under 800 miles of Alaskan terrain, the oil consortium said there were no worries about leaks; the $7.7 billion structure would be almost rustproof for 30 to 40 years. Anyway, Alyeska - the consortium's pipeline service company - said then it had an adequate system to detect rust.

Thirteen years later, the pipeline is experiencing corrosion in hundreds of spots along its steel walls. At least four years of repair work will be needed, at a cost ranging from $600 million to $1.5 billion. Alyeska now admits that an adequate rust-detection system went into use only in the past year.

"We think we're on top of the problem, and we're quite certain we won't have a leak," said Bill Howitt, engineering manager for Alyeska. Let us hope; Alaska has had enough oil-induced trauma for a while, and the rest of us have had enough surprises.

The repair workers' task is cut out for them. The 4-foot-wide pipeline crosses three mountain ranges and 800 rivers and streams. Half of it is underground; half is elevated on trestles (remember the caribou migrations?). It traverses terrain where outside temperatures can reach 90 degrees Fahrenheit in summer and plunge to 75 below in winter. It carries about 80 million gallons of crude oil daily.

What went wrong? Robert La Resche, a state official, says the builders "were in a real hurry to turn the sucker on and start getting a cash flow," so did not apply adequate protective coating everywhere on the line. Where it runs underground, the crude - as hot as 176 F - melts the frost that is always below the Alaskan soil's surface; where the resulting moisture touches unprotected steel, rust can develop.

The oil industry still is pumping 25 percent of the nation's domestic supply through the existing pipeline, but it would like to drill for more oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Crude from those fields would be fed through a separate pipe into the main line to Valdez. Assurances abound: The industry has learned its lesson. Congress, Alaska and environmentalists have reasons to be skeptical.

by CNB