NOAA Report Identifies Shipwrecks with the Potential to Pollute

On May 14, 1942, the U.S. Army Air Corps photographed the location of the burning tanker Potrero del Llano. (National Archives)

Over the past couple years I’ve talked about the threat of oil spills from historic shipwrecks, including the S/S Edmund Fitzgerald in the Great Lakes and the S/S Montebello off southern California. But we know that these wrecks are just the tip of the iceberg.

The past century of commerce and warfare has dotted our waters with shipwrecks, many of which have never been surveyed. Since 2010, my office, working with the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries and the U.S. Coast Guard, has been systematically looking at which of these wrecks might pose a substantial threat of leaking oil still on board. This work is part of NOAA’s Remediation of Underwater Legacy Environmental Threats (RULET) project.

We used a tiered approach to develop an initial priority list of vessels for risk assessment. This process narrowed down the estimated 20,000 vessels in U.S. waters to 573 that met the initial criteria. The ships had to be over 1,000 gross tons (making them about 200 feet or longer), built to carry or use oil as fuel, and made of a durable material such as steel.

Understanding how a shipwreck site formed helps explain why vessels, like the Dixie Arrow which initially carried approximately 86,136 barrels of crude oil, but was demolished during World War II, no longer remain intact and are no longer potentially polluting shipwrecks. (NOAA)

Additional research revealed the actual number posing a substantial pollution threat was lower because of the violent nature in which some ships sank (many were lost in World War II). This is because, for example, a ship hit and sunk by torpedoes would be less likely to still have intact tanks of oil. And other vessels were taken off our radar because they have fallen apart or were demolished because they were navigational hazards.

We also used computer models to predict the environmental and economic consequences of oil spills from these vessels. Those results then helped us sort out which wrecks might pose the biggest risks.

A map showing the name, location, and priority level of shipwrecks recommended to the U.S. Coast Guard for further pollution assessment. (NOAA)

On May 20, we released both an overall report describing this work and our recommendations and 87 individual wreck assessments. The individual risk assessments highlight not only concerns about potential ecological and socio-economic impacts, but they also characterize most of the vessels as being historically significant. In addition, many of them are grave sites, both civilian and military.

The national report and the 87 risk assessments are available at
http://sanctuaries.noaa.gov/protect/ppw/
.

Removal Operations Continue for Navy Mine Ship on Philippine Coral Reef

Aerial view of the vessels aiding in the dismantling process of the mine countermeasures ship Ex-Guardian, which ran aground on the Tubbataha Reef Jan. 17. The U.S. Navy continues to work in close cooperation with the Philippine authorities to safely dismantle Guardian from the reef while minimizing environmental effects. (U.S. Navy/Anderson Bomjardim)

You may recall that in January the Navy mine countermeasures ship USS Guardian ran aground on a coral reef in the Philippines, inside Tubbataha Reefs Natural Park. The Navy removed the approximately 15,000 gallons of fuel aboard the ship and decided that the safest way to extract the Guardian from the reef was to deconstruct and carry it away in smaller sections.

Here are some interesting photos showing how the removal of the grounded “Ex-Guardian” (formerly USS Guardian) is progressing.

First, the superstructure (Wheelhouse and above deck structures) was removed as you can see in the top photo. Now the hull is being cut into sections and removed. Earlier this week the bow section, weighing approximately 250 tons, was lifted off the reef and placed onto an awaiting barge (bottom photo).

A crane vessel removes the bow of the mine countermeasure ship Ex-Guardian, which ran aground on the Tubbataha Reef, Jan. 17. The U.S. Navy and contracted salvage teams continue damage assessments and the removal of equipment and parts to prepare the grounded ship to be safely dismantled and removed from Tubbataha Reef. (U.S. Navy/Kelby Sanders)

The U.S. Navy has been working closely with the Philippine Coast Guard, Philippine Navy, and Tubbataha Reefs Natural Park during the process.

For more information on the removal operations, check out
http://www.cpf.navy.mil/news.aspx/010081

You can also find out more about how NOAA works to protect and restore coral reefs after ship groundings in some of our previous blog posts:

• With Tropical Storm Isaac’s Passing, Crews Resume Cutting Apart Grounded Ship and Protecting Coral at Mona Island, Puerto Rico
• When Coral Reefs Lose a Boxing Match

From Rubber Ducks to Dog Food, Spilling Everything But Oil

Sometimes when responders can’t spill oil, they spill rubber ducks. (Credit: Jason Ahrns. Used under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.)

What do rubber duckies, dog food, oranges, wood chips, green dye, hula hoops, peat moss, popcorn, and rice hulls have in common?  All have been used to mimic the behavior of spilled oil.  These materials are used because in the U.S. dumping oil in the ocean is prohibited, even if it is done intentionally for training, experimental, or testing purposes.

Tank testing has been an alternative, and we use real oil in test tanks such as the one at Ohmsett (an oil spill response and research testing facility in New Jersey), but there are questions about how well these tanks simulate real world conditions, including rough seas, currents, and waves.

That means there is a real need for materials that both realistically mimic oil behavior and are safe for use in the environment. They allow us to test computer models, such as NOAA’s GNOME oil forecasting model, and to improve how containment booms and other response tactics work.

During the “Safe Seas 2006″ emergency response drill off San Francisco, Calif., responders deployed nontoxic green dye to simulate an oil spill. (NOAA)

On March 21, 2013, experts from around the country gathered at NOAA offices in Seattle, Wash., to discuss the need and best options for oil spill simulants. What alternatives are best? What are the environmental effects of those simulants? What permits are needed? And most importantly, how similar is the behavior compared with real oil?

One of the preliminary conclusions from this meeting is that oil behavior is difficult to emulate, and all of the existing simulants have drawbacks.

We’ll post a future story about progress in this area, and in the meantime, if you notice a bunch of oranges (or grapefruits or lemons) floating in the water, you may be seeing a test of oil spill preparedness like this one in Florida:

Coast Guard, partnering agencies conduct Tidal Inlet Protection Strategy exercise.

In August of 2012, the U.S. Coast Guard and partnering agencies conducted an exercise aimed at testing the ability to protect Biscayne Bay (Florida) from offshore oil and involved deploying approximately 7,500 feet of boom and 240 pieces of surrogate oil or fruit, including grapefruits, oranges, and lemons across the channel. (U.S. Coast Guard)

From Dynamite to Deconstruction, or How to Remove Ships from Coral Reefs

SULU SEA (Jan. 28, 2013) The U.S. Navy contracted Malaysian tug Vos Apollo removes petroleum-based products and human wastewater from the mine countermeasure ship USS Guardian (MCM 5), which ran aground on the Tubbataha Reef in the Sulu Sea on Jan. 17. No fuel has leaked since the grounding and all of the approximately 15,000 gallons on board Guardian was safely transferred to Vos Apollo during two days of controlled de-fueling operations on Jan. 24 and Jan. 25. The grounding and subsequent heavy waves hitting Guardian have caused severe damage, leading the Navy to determine the 23-year old ship is beyond economical repair and is a complete loss. With the deteriorating integrity of the ship, the weight involved, and where it has grounded on the reef, dismantling the ship in sections is the only supportable salvage option. Since Guardian’s grounding, the Navy has been working meticulously to salvage any reusable equipment, retrieve the crew’s personal effects, and remove any potentially harmful materials. The U.S. Navy continues to work in close cooperation with the Philippine Coast Guard and Navy to safely dismantle Guardian from the reef while minimizing environmental effects. (U.S. Navy)

On January 17, 2013, the Navy mine countermeasures ship USS Guardian ran aground on a coral reef in the Philippines. Salvage experts evaluated various options for removing the ship, including towing or pulling it off the reef, but concluded that such efforts would cause even more damage  to the reef and the ship’s hull. Earlier this month, the Navy decided to dismantle the ship and remove it in smaller sections in order to minimize damage to the reef and surrounding marine environment.

The Tubbataha Reef, where the ship grounded in the Sulu Sea, is a marine park and UNESCO World Heritage Site, recognized for its biodiversity, pristine reefs, and protected nesting habitat for marine birds and sea turtles.

The photos of the stranded ship and the concern about the corals in this part of the world reminded me of a story about the old U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey (USC&GS) vessel Fathomer.  The USC&GS mission was to survey the U.S. coastline and create nautical charts of the coast to help increase maritime safety. Today, this part of NOAA is called the Office of Coast Survey, which produces navigational products, data, and services to keep maritime commerce moving and to protect life and property at sea. (Editor’s note: You can check out their WordPress blog at
http://noaacoastsurvey.wordpress.com
.)

I came across old photos of the Fathomer when I was working on a project studying the impact of vessel groundings on corals.  That story ended quite differently than the USS Guardian, and shows how environmental protection has become a much bigger concern for salvors.  In the old days, the focus of salvage was strictly to save the ship and cargo, but modern salvors (salvage crews) have a much bigger emphasis on protecting the environment.

On August 15, 1936, the Fathomer dragged anchor in a typhoon and, like the USS Guardian, ended up grounded on a coral reef in the Philippine Islands[1].  At that time, the Philippines were a commonwealth of the United States, and the Fathomer was surveying and charting the islands.

The NOAA ship Fathomer aground on a coral reef in the Philippines after the typhoon of August 15, 1936. (NOAA)

The story of the Fathomer’s grounding and salvage is a good sea story, complete with rum.  All of the crew survived the storm and grounding, but the official history mentions that “Everyone was bruised and suffering from exhaustion and exposure. Two quarts of brandy, stored in the sick bay, were rationed out to all hands, and undoubtedly resulted in no one developing a severe cold or pneumonia.” The entire crew was later commended for their “seamanship, courage and fortitude.”

But what I found most interesting was the salvage efforts.  Buried in the official history are some details that show that coral reef protection was not a concern in 1936.  For example, a pile driver was used to place a “cluster of piles driven on the reef,” and these pilings were “backed by three anchors imbedded in the reef.”  Wire ropes were then used to try to bring the Fathomer upright and haul it off the reef, but those efforts were unsuccessful and ultimately the reef was dynamited and the loose coral was dredged, allowing the Fathomer to be towed to deeper water.

The removal of the USS Guardian is ongoing, but thankfully, it is clear, almost 80 years later, that coral reef protection will be very high on the list of priorities.

---

[1] The Fathomer worked in the Philippines from 1905-1941. After the 1936 typhoon, Fathomer resumed survey duties in the Philippine Islands. During World War II the ship was used in the defense of the Philippines and was lost in April 1942 when the American and Filipino defenders surrendered the Bataan Peninsula.

NOAA Awards $500,000 to Research Projects Exploring Impacts of Chemical Dispersants on Marine Habitats

The University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science in Baltimore, Md., has been awarded $150,000 to study the effects of dispersants and dispersed oil on the commercially important blue crab, a keystone species of the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic coast, and its larvae. A female blue crab (Callinectes sapidus) is pictured here on a beach on Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay. (NOAA)

Earlier this year I wrote about NOAA making funding available to study the effects of chemical dispersants on the marine environment.  NOAA partnered with the Coastal Response Research Center at the University of New Hampshire to make a formal call for research project proposals.

We received 36 proposals from researchers and universities across the U.S. and Canada and even a few from scientists in Europe. Those proposals were peer-reviewed this past summer and early fall, and while there were lots of great proposals, only three research projects could be selected for funding.

We’re pleased to announce that NOAA will provide grants, totaling $500,000, to the following studies [PDF], which will focus on:

• Developing a worldwide quantitative database of the toxicological effects of dispersants and chemically dispersed oil.
• Conducting research to improve understanding of chronic impacts of chemical dispersant and chemically dispersed oil on blue crabs, a commercially important species of marine life.
• Researching public concerns and improving risk communication tools for oil spills and dispersants.

Over the next year we’ll get progress reports from the researchers, and all of the materials will be available online at the University of New Hampshire’s website.

Congress provided money for these grants out of supplemental research funding following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon/BP oil spill.

Hurricane Sandy Hits the East Coast, NOAA Response Staff at the Ready

Storm surge at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, during Hurricane Sandy on the morning of October 29, 2012. (North Carolina Department of Transportation)

With Hurricane Sandy focused squarely on the Mid Atlantic and New England, responders are watching closely and standing by to assist with the recovery efforts. These initial recovery efforts will focus on saving lives and restoring essential services, such as power and transportation.

However, as was the case during Hurricane Isaac, the hurricane winds and flood waters are also expected to cause wide-spread environmental pollution from damaged coastal industries, ruptured petroleum storage tanks, sunken and stranded vessels, and other sources of pollution.

NOAA’s Scientific Support Coordinators and other responders from the Office of Response and Restoration are on-standby and in communication with their counterparts at the U.S. Coast Guard and Environmental Protection Agency to address these challenges after the storm passes.

Get Hurricane Sandy updates at the National Hurricane Center and see real-time tide gauges from the National Ocean Service.

NOAA’s GOES-13 satellite captured this visible image of Hurricane Sandy battering the U.S. East Coast on Monday, Oct. 29 at 9:10 a.m. EDT. Sandy’s center was about 310 miles south-southeast of New York City. Tropical Storm force winds are about 1,000 miles in diameter. (NASA GOES Project)

NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration Responds to Hurricane Isaac in the Gulf

Office of Response and Restoration staff continues to support the U.S. Coast Guard’s assessment and response efforts following the landfall of Hurricane Isaac last week. Our office has two Scientific Support Coordinators and two information management specialists on scene in Louisiana.

Flooding on the Mississippi River, just west of New Orleans, La., in the aftermath of Hurricane Isaac. (NOAA)

Additional support is being provided remotely for ERMA^® (an online mapping tool for visualizing key environmental response data) and for response management. The Gulf of Mexico Regional ERMA site is being used as the U.S. Coast Guard Common Operational Picture and is providing operations, environmental, and situation unit support for the federal response efforts.

Our information management and ERMA team members are coordinating with the Coast Guard, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and state and local partners to provide real-time situational awareness for local and remote agency personnel. The primary focus is on oil and chemical pollution from sunken vessels, facility releases, toppled tanks and rail cars, and pipeline and rig spills. Pollution is to be expected following major storms like Isaac when flood waters carry all sorts of household and industrial debris.

So far, Coast Guard and Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality assessment teams have investigated about 90 separate reports of pollution throughout the impacted areas. Facility owners are taking steps to clean up the majority of these incidents. Six sites require further assessment, and environmental response crews are taking steps to clean up or contain any oil releases.

The OR&R team is also tracking marine debris and evaluating the effect of the passing hurricane on shorelines affected by the Deepwater Horizon/BP oil spill. Shoreline Cleanup and Assessment Technique teams are beginning operations along the Gulf Coast looking for new spills but also focusing on tarballs and oily residue discovered in the area oiled by the Deepwater Horizon/BP spill in 2010. Samples of tarballs are being collected and will be analyzed to determine the source.

Saving Coral After a Ship Grounds on a Reef in Puerto Rico

The ship M/V Jireh, run aground on coral reef in Puerto Rico, is surrounded by protective oil boom. Credit: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Late last week a small freighter, the M/V Jireh, ran aground on Mona Island, an uninhabited island off Puerto Rico. The 22-square-mile island, an ecological reserve, is about 41 miles west of the main island of Puerto Rico. NOAA, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and U.S. Coast Guard are focusing on recovering the fuel and oil on board the freighter to minimize the environmental impact.

Efforts are underway to remove about 2,000 gallons of fuel oil from the Jireh. So far it looks like a major oil spill has been averted, but there is concern about the physical impact of the ship itself. As the ship plowed into the reef, it crushed and toppled corals. Unless restored, these unstable and barren areas may take generations to recover as tiny young coral larvae struggle to find a stable place to attach to the reef. Scientists are currently conducting a survey to see how much coral the ship affected.

[UPDATE JUNE 28, 2012: After surveying the underwater area around the grounded vessel, NOAA divers concluded that the ship caused minimal impact to coral. As of June 27, they were assessing whether any coral colonies or endangered species 300 feet out from the ship might be in its path as salvage teams attempted to refloat and remove it. NOAA would proactively remove and transplant any vulnerable species before salvage operations began.

Response crews have confirmed the Jireh is sound enough for them to go ahead and remove the diesel on board. They have deployed 100 feet of containment boom around the smaller response vessel ready to receive the fuel pumped off the Jireh. They also are removing a variety of oiled cargo from the ship, including mangoes, water bottles, cinder blocks, grain, bags of horse feed, and carbonated drinks.]

An injury doesn’t only stem from the grounded vessel. Anchors for the protective boom meant to contain any spilled oil have to be placed carefully to prevent additional damage, and care needs to be taken when the salvage tugs start to rig their own anchors and cables. About 800 feet of oil boom is currently strung around the vessel.

Some emergency actions can be taken to restore the coral reef, but recovery will still be slow. My office works to minimize those environmental impacts and develop restoration alternatives. If you are interested in other photos showing how we address coral injuries, take a look at the Maitland, Fla., and Cape Flattery, Hawaii, cases.

Mona Island is uninhabited, but there is a lot of shipping traffic nearby, and it has been affected by other ship groundings. In July 1997, the 325-foot container ship Fortuna Reefer ran aground on the south shore of the island, damaging approximately 6.8 acres of coral habitat. In September 1997, NOAA initiated an emergency restoration to the reef dominated by elkhorn coral (Acropora palmata) that was completed by mid-October 1997.

What Happens After Abandoning Ship

Twenty three years after running aground on a reef in Alaska and causing one of the largest spills in U.S. history, the tanker Exxon Valdez is back in the news—this time to keep it from being intentionally grounded on a beach in India.

The Indian Supreme Court has ruled that the Exxon Valdez (now called the Oriental Nicety) cannot be grounded and cut apart on the shores of Gujarat until it can be cleaned of residual oils and other contaminants.

Workers scrap ships for parts and metal (“ship breaking”) on a beach in Bhatiari, Chittagong, Bangladesh. Credit: Naquib Hossain, Creative Commons License: Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0).

What’s known as “ship breaking” is a dirty business, and many of the world’s tired and obsolete vessels end up being grounded on beaches in India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan and cut apart for scrap steel.

In recent years the business of ship scrapping has become a major health and environmental concern. Many ship breaking yards in these developing countries have little or no safety equipment or environmental protections, and toxic materials from these ships, including oils, heavy metals, and asbestos, escape into the environment.

A rusted-out derelict vessel still sits grounded on a coal reef in Samoa. (NOAA/Doug Helton)

Obsolete vessels and ship scrapping can also be a problem here in the U.S. Last year, the 431-foot S/S Davy Crockett made the news down on the Columbia River near Vancouver, Wash.

Mysterious oil sheens on the river were traced upriver to the former Navy Liberty ship that had begun leaking oil due to improper and unpermitted salvage operations.

Next week I will be at the Clean Pacific Conference in Long Beach, Calif., and presenting information on the challenges of dealing with abandoned and derelict vessels in the U.S. I know that the Davy Crockett and the issues it raised will come up.

Vessels are abandoned for all sorts of reasons, including storms (particularly hurricanes/typhoons which may damage large numbers of boats), community-wide economic stress or change (e.g., declining commercial fishing industries), and financial or legal issues of individual owners.  The high cost of proper vessel disposal can lead some folks to just walk away.

Hopefully we can help improve how we respond to these vessels and increase prevention programs to prevent abandonment. If you are interested in this issue, there is more information on NOAA’s Abandoned Vessel Program.

Help NOAA Study Chemical Dispersants and Oil Spills

A plane releases chemical dispersant to break up an oil slick on the water surface below. Photo courtesy of the National Commission on the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling.

Help NOAA expand what we know about the effects of chemical dispersants on both spilled oil and the marine environment: funding for research projects is now available [leaves this blog].

The explosion and subsequent well blowout on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig on April 20, 2010, led to the largest oil spill in United States history.

The unprecedented use of chemical dispersants on and below the ocean’s surface during this oil spill raised scientific, public, and political questions about both their effectiveness and their potential consequences for ecosystems and marine life in the Gulf of Mexico.

To help answer those questions, NOAA is partnering with the Coastal Response Research Center at the University of New Hampshire to fund research on dispersants and dispersed oil. The focus will be in the following areas: 1) dispersants and risk communication; 2) degradation of dispersants and dispersed oil; and 3) biological effects of dispersants and dispersed oil on surface and deep ocean species.

The request for research proposals is available at the Center’s website [leaves this blog]. Researchers interested in submitting a proposal need to turn in a letter of interest by May 15, 2012.

The Coastal Response Research Center was established in 2004 as a hub for oil spill research, development, and technical knowledge transfer. The Center is a partnership between the University of New Hampshire and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Office of Response and Restoration. The Center collaborates with other federal, state, and local research and development programs to promote effective protection, assessment, and restoration of coastal areas and resources.

The overall goal of the Center is to reduce both the potential for, and the consequences of, spills and other hazards threatening coastal environments and communities. Advances in science and technology relating to spills will be applied to other types of threats to coastal environments and communities, when possible.

Preventing a spill is always the preferred scenario, but as long as we explore, drill, and transport oil, there will be a chance for spills. And once oil is spilled, we can no longer prevent harm from happening to the marine environment, but we can reduce that harm through a combination of response measures. With our partner at the Coastal Response Research Center, we hope to improve the science of spill response before the next oil spill happens, so that when it unfortunately does occur, we are better prepared to deal with it.