Earthquakes continued to rumble under Redoubt Volcano and oil producers shut down their platforms amid fears the tremors could send floodwaters cascading over an oil terminal on the Cook Inlet. Redoubt has been erupting since mid-December, sending corrosive ash as high as eight miles into the sky and melting glacier ice, producing muddy torrents of water that have overflowed the banks of the Drift River. The Drift River storage terminal, with 38 million gallons of oil stored in its tanks, sits on the banks of the inlet in the shadow of the volcano 115 miles southwest of Anchorage. The terminal has been closed since Tuesday, and officials planned to remove most of its oil. Redoubt's last eruption was Monday, but seismologists said the volcano remains active, and that more flooding was possible in future eruptions. ``The quake activity indicates the volcano is relatively quiet for now and it does not appear to be building toward stronger eruptive activity,'' geologist Steve Brantley of the Alaska Volcano Observatory said Wednesday. Still, a major eruption like Monday's is possible, he said. Ten of the 15 platforms that pull oil from the Cook Inlet send their crude to the Drift River terminal for storage. With the terminal closed, eight of the 10 platforms have been forced to shut down, said Bill Lamoreaux, a regional supervisor with the state Department of Environmental Conservation. ``The other two platforms are (operating at) very low volume,'' Lamoreaux said. There have been fears the flooding could breach storage tanks, causing a spill of the dimensions of the March 24 wreck of the tanker Exxon Valdez, which released 11 million gallons of North Slope crude into Prince William Sound. Harold Mouser, manager of Cook Inlet Pipe Line Co., which operates the terminal, said the tanker Sansinena was standing by to remove the terminal's oil as soon as the procedure is ready. ``We do not have our equipment operational yet for loading the tanker. People there are working on it and have been working through the night,'' Mouser said Wednesday. Cook Inlet Pipeline Co. and the state agreed Tuesday to shut down the terminal and remove about 80 percent of the oil. The terminal probably will not resume operations until the company and the state can agree how to operate it safely under the continuing threat of Redoubt, Lamoreaux said. ``They recognize they had a heck of an inventory of crude oil,'' he said. ``The facility sits right on the shoreline of Cook Inlet. The tank farm is on the back side, but there's nothing to stop it if the contents were lost.'' ``I'll be feeling a lot better when the total volume is reduced.'' The production halt could cost the state of Alaska some money, said Chuck Logsden, a petroleum economist with the Department of Revenue. The affected fields contributed much of the $23.3 million in royalties Alaska collected last year from Cook Inlet production, he said.
