Trident is renewing its tanker spill plan, in waters it has spilled in before

Trident Seafoods is renewing the oil-spill plan for two tank vessels it uses to move fuel through Alaska waters, and the company doing the renewing has spilled oil in those waters before.

The seafood company runs the MV Eastern Wind and MV Sea Trader, tankers that carry petroleum through the Aleutians, Bristol Bay, Cook Inlet, Kodiak, Prince William Sound, Southeast and Western Alaska to supply its remote plants. State law requires their spill prevention and contingency plan be renewed every five years, and the current one expires in January. The public has until Aug. 27 to comment and until Aug. 12 to request a hearing.

The company has a spill history in Alaska. In January 1990, more than 127,000 gallons of diesel spilled from Trident's tank farm at Sand Point, oiling about 4.5 miles of shoreline, according to state environmental records. The state also lists Trident sites where petroleum reached the ground, and the company stores well over a million gallons of fuel at a single Aleutian plant.

The affected waters include Prince William Sound, where the Exxon Valdez ran aground in 1989 — the disaster that prompted Congress to create the citizen councils that now scrutinize oil transport in the sound and Cook Inlet.