August 6, 1998

The Honorable Rodney Slater
Secretary of Transportation
Department of Transportation
400 Seventh Street, SW
Washington, D.C. 20590

Dear Mr. Secretary:

On behalf of America’s national environmental organizations, we urge you to extend mandatory tug escort for all laden oil tankers entering the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

The glaring gap in protection against the substantial risk of tanker accidents and a major oil spill in the first 70 miles of the Strait of Juan de Fuca requires your urgent action.

Mr. Secretary, you have ample legal authority, both under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 and the Port and Waterways Safety Act, to extend the existing federal tug escort requirement to this unprotected area of the outer Strait.

It is within the powers of this Administration to proceed with this urgently needed action on an accelerated basis, as Governor Locke, Senator Murray and Rep. Metcalf have so strongly urged.

Senator Patty Murray, Representative Jack Metcalf and Governor Gary Locke have voiced their united bipartisan support for extending tug escort to the outer Strait as an interim measure pending the outcome of studies that a still far from complete. We join these public officials in urging that you implement this interim protection until a potentially more cost-effective -- more protective -- combination of measures to improve vessel safety in these busy sea-lanes is in place and well tested. We join them in urging that this be done before another winter storm season is upon us.

In his July 6th letter to Vice President Gore, Governor Locke expressed his "concern about the need for improved safety measures while these reviews are underway." In their June 10th letter to the Vice President, Rep. Metcalf and Sen. Murray reduced the issue to its simplest, starkest point:

"Ultimately, the question is who bears the risk during an interim evaluation period -- the environment and citizens of the Puget Sound area or the oil industry? Given the magnitude of the consequences associated with a major spill in the Straits or Puget Sound, the answer should be clear."

We will not repeat here the well-established litany of facts about the risks created by this glaring gap in the tanker safety regime of the Puget Sound/Strait of Georgia region. The Coast Guard-sponsored Volpe Study, the analyses of the Washington Department of Ecology and others amply document the serious scale of the risk. It is difficult to overstate the enormous potential environmental damage of such a spill in the Strait and spreading into Puget Sound, the San Juan Islands and the Strait of Georgia. Nor can we overstate the potential economic and political repercussions.

As a result of the uproar which flowed with the oil from the Exxon Valdez nine years ago, tankers now leave Prince William Sound under a far stricter safety regime (two-tug escort and stand-by rescue tugs) than the inadequate arrangements which prevail as the enter the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

As the Tacoma, Washington News Tribune editorialized on June 22nd:

"Tug escorts and a rescue tug have been required in Prince William Sound since the devastating Exxon Valdez spill; those measures reduce the risk of another spill there by 75 percent. Is the state of Washington supposed to wait until it has its own disaster before tugs are required?"

Mr. Secretary, this is not a parochial or regional matter. You know that a spill in these waters will bring down an unstoppable nationwide and international cry for far-stronger action and for investigation of inaction.

Neither you, the President, the leaders of the U.S. Coast Guard or our organizations want a tanker accident in this heavily trafficked waterway to lead to an Exxon Valdez-scale ecological catastrophe in Puget Sound on our "watch".

As you and the President lead this "Year of the Ocean", we as leaders of the national environmental movement respectfully urge you to preempt the risk of a tanker-caused spill in the Strait of Juan de Fuca and Puget Sound by immediate action.

Sincerely,