Back to the Shore after Hurricane Sandy

GIS specialist Jay Coady, Environmental Sensitivity Index map specialist Jill Petersen, John Tarpley of the OR&R Emergency Response Division, and Jason Rolfe of the NOAA Marine Debris Program also contributed to this post.

Two boys take a break on the beach in Ocean City, Md., during the summer of 2012, before Hurricane Sandy. (Glenda Powell/all rights reserved)

With Memorial Day approaching and summer weather returning, folks in the northeast will once again be flocking to the shore, as they have for generations.  This summer season is the first since Hurricane Sandy hit the region in late October of 2012, with devastating effects to beaches from Connecticut to Virginia. Much of the damage has been repaired and many visitors likely will find their favorite beaches as enjoyable as ever, but there is much work remaining to do.

Headed for Calmer Shores

A response team formed by the Hurricane Sandy Pollution Response Unified Command prior to an overflight during which the U.S. Coast Guard worked with NOAA to map areas of possible pollution threats in New York and New Jersey. LTJG Alice Drury of OR&R is in the middle of the group. (U.S. Coast Guard)

The NOAA Office of Response and Restoration (OR&R) responded immediately in the wake of the massive storm. OR&R’s Emergency Response Division provided scientific support to the U.S. Coast Guard to contain a major diesel spill at the Motiva Refinery in Sewarren, N.J., next to New York’s Staten Island and Raritan Bay. We also provided support for the many smaller petroleum product spills in northern New Jersey and southern New York.  Aerial and ground surveys helped identify and prioritize the cleanup of pollution sources from boats, displaced hazardous material containers, and other debris.

OR&R was on scene working with other state and federal agencies to lead a preliminary assessment of natural resource impacts from the oil spills for possible Natural Resource Damage Assessment claims and restoration. In addition, the Coast Guard and other responders used OR&R’s collaborative online mapping tool, Environmental Response Management Application (ERMA^®) for the Atlantic Coast, as the “common operational picture,” that is, the official “big picture” tool for coordinating pollution response activities.

Atlantic ERMA, which is customized for New York and New Jersey waters, was involved in mapping the Hurricane Sandy response and recovery efforts since before the storm hit land. In the days leading up to landfall, OR&R started populating Atlantic ERMA with storm-specific data, such as predicted storm surge models, hurricane track and wind speeds, and NOAA facility locations.

A partially submerged vessel in Navesink River, N.J., Nov. 10, 2012. Boom was placed around the vessel to mitigate pollution during the response efforts. (U.S. Coast Guard)

In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, Atlantic ERMA served as the common operational picture for the Hurricane Sandy pollution response. It aided the NOAA Scientific Support Coordinators (our pollution first responders), U.S. Coast Guard, and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in the removal and cleanup of identified pollution sources and threats.

Atlantic ERMA integrated these response efforts with environmental data (like locations of sensitive habitat) to give responders a better idea of how to deal with pollution threats while minimizing environmental damages.

As the common operational picture, ERMA provided a single platform for responders to view all of the storm-related data and imagery as well as various cleanup efforts by the states and other federal agencies. Our team of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) specialists working on ERMA also helped provide data management support in tracking the progress made by the pollution response field teams.

Making it Safe to Get Back in the Water

In the Hurricane Sandy Relief Bill, Congress provided the NOAA Marine Debris Program with funds to address marine debris issues resulting from Sandy. In addition, funds were allocated to OR&R’s Emergency Response Division to update our Environmental Sensitivity Index maps on the east coast, with particular emphasis on areas affected by Hurricane Sandy and other coastal storms over the past several years. These maps identify coastal shorelines, wildlife, and habitat that may be especially vulnerable to an oil spill and also include the resources people use, such as a fishery or recreational beach.

Click on this map to view the complete Environmental Sensitivity Index map, created by OR&R’s Emergency Response Division. The map shows sensitive habitats and species that are typically present in the Staten Island area in November and December, the months following Hurricane Sandy. (NOAA)

Marine debris can be found in concentrations across the impacted region both on the shoreline and below the water surface.  These items pose potential hazards to navigation, commercial fishing grounds, and sensitive ecosystems.

We are using Atlantic ERMA to provide mapping support and tools to show aerial imagery, debris dispersion models, and identified marine debris locations supplied by stakeholders. Our mapping support also helps with the planning efforts for debris cleanup.

A combination of aerial, underwater, and shoreline surveys are necessary to assess the quantity and location of marine debris in the impacted coastal areas.  These assessments will allow NOAA to estimate the debris impacts to economies and ecosystems, identify priority items for removal, support limited removal efforts, and help bring our northeastern shores back to a sunnier state.

Read about more examples of our work protecting and restoring the shores the nation loves to visit.

What Do We Know About Transporting Oil Sands in the United States?

This is a guest post by University of Washington graduate students Robin Fay, Terry Sullivan, Shanese Crosby, Jeffrey Smith, Ali Kani, and Colin Groark.

Response operations near the source of the oil sands spill on Talmadge Creek near Michigan’s Kalamazoo River. August 1, 2010 (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency)

Over the past 6 months, our research team has been gathering data and interpreting information to help NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration (OR&R) better prepare for a potential spill of Canadian oil sands product in U.S. waters. (Oil sands are also known as tar sands.)

Our research has sought to provide OR&R, whose experts offer scientific support in case of a marine or coastal oil spill, with:

• Background and context on oil sands development and transport.
• In-depth research on the physical properties of oil sands products, national transportation networks, and emerging risks.
• Analysis of the existing information and policy gaps, and some recommendations aimed at improving pollution response readiness in the event of an oil sands spill.

In doing so, we have worked to answer some key research questions, which we developed with the OR&R and other stakeholders (e.g., Washington State Department of Ecology), including:

• Would oil sands products sink or float when spilled in salt water? What about fresh water?
• How might oils sands products weather and change their physical and chemical characteristics once spilled into the environment?
• How and where are oil sands products already being transported around the U.S. and Washington’s Puget Sound?
• What are the future plans for expanding the national transportation network for oil sands products?

Our research took us into the technical depths of petroleum chemistry, state-of-the-art oil spill response technology, federal and state regulations, human and environmental health implications, and several types of transportation networks. From early on, it was clear to us just what a complex and far-reaching issue oils sands development really is. In some cases, trying to find answers just led to more questions. Although there are still many things we don’t know for sure and further research is needed, we ultimately were able to get closer to understanding the unique risks and challenges oils sands products pose to pollution responders and the environments they work to protect.

Here are our top five research findings:

1. All oil sands products are not created equal. They are not homogenous and are not easily categorized by any particular set of characteristics. Their composition and physical properties can vary widely based on many factors, including: what region the product originated from, what chemicals or substances it has been blended with, and how much processing or upgrading it has gone through prior to transport. This means that anticipating appropriate response action for a diverse array of products labeled as “oil sands” is somewhat of a moving target.
2. Very little is known about how oil sands products might weather (or change) in the environment. Some studies have been done on this topic[1], but they have typically tested one or two specific oil sands products in a laboratory setting. Their results cannot be presumed to represent the full range of possible weathering scenarios (e.g., the varying influence of waves, sunlight, wind, etc). Understanding how an oil changes as it weathers in the environment is critical to planning and executing an effective spill response.
3. The United States already receives almost 1.4 million barrels per day of oil sands products from Canada. This oil is transported all over the country by pipeline, rail, tanker ship, and barge. Although the proposed Keystone XL pipeline project is certainly the most visible oil sands infrastructure expansion project currently in the works, it is far from the only one. Many other pipeline expansion and terminal projects have been proposed—such as the Trans Mountain and Northern Gateway expansions proposed by Kinder Morgan and Enbridge—which would bring Alberta oil into Western Canada and even as far as Cherry Point and Anacortes, Wash. If completed, they could more than double the capacity to transport oil sands products into the U.S.
4. While pipeline projects—like the Keystone XL—have met fierce resistance from environmental groups, tribes, and others concerned about the risks these projects might present to their communities, the oil industry already has begun (without fanfare) to use rail for transporting oil sands products instead. Because the network of rail lines already exists, and the regulatory framework governing oil transport by rail is less developed, this segment of their transportation has been expanding rapidly. The full extent of current and planned oil sands transport by rail is unknown.
5. During our assessments, we found critical gaps in the current oversight, rules and regulations, contingency planning requirements, and response capacity to address the increasing transport of oil sands products. In order for regulators and responders to address effectively the emerging risks associated with oil sands products, these gaps must be addressed. Response equipment needs to be developed that is proven to be effective at detecting, containing, and removing oil sands products from the environment. Disclosure requirements for those processing and transporting oil sands products need to be improved so that regulatory agencies can better understand where and how to prioritize their efforts. Additionally, oversight, risk assessment, and contingency planning should be enhanced to take into account the increasing possibility of a spill of oil sands product. This need and the lack of adequate response capacity for oil sands products have been highlighted by the recent spills in Minnesota and Arkansas.

That’s a tall order, and unlikely to happen overnight. But there is some good news. Locally in Washington state, the Washington State Department of Ecology and U.S. Coast Guard in Sector Puget Sound have been pioneers. They are already working to improve their ability to prevent, plan for, and respond to an oil sands product spill. Last December, a conference in Portland, Maine, brought experts together from across the U.S. and Canada to discuss oil sands, and a similar conference recently was held in Seattle on April 16.

Stakeholders and policy makers we spoke with on both coasts, in the Great Lakes region, and in Canada have all begun to consider how increased oil sands development affects their region or function. Oil sands slowly are beginning to appear with greater prominence on the agenda for decision makers, not just for a particular state or project, but as an issue that spans political and geographic boundaries. If oil sands development and transportation continues to receive more and more attention, we hope it will also receive the oversight and response resources necessary to address sufficiently the risks that come with it.

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[1] SL Ross Environmental Research Limited. (2012, October). Meso-scale Weathering of Cold Lake Bitumen/Condensate Blend. [PDF]

When Studying How to Clean Oiled Marshes, NOAA Scientists Have Their Work Cut Out for Them

This is a post by Office of Response and Restoration Biologist Nicolle Rutherford.

Oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill oozes out from beneath a vegetation mat in a marsh in Barataria Bay’s Bay Jimmy, Louisiana. (Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality/Mike Broussard)

To clean, or not to clean: That is the question.

And if you’re going to clean, how best to do it? This is a question that responders face whenever oil ends up on a shoreline after an oil spill. It’s a particularly difficult question when this happens on the shoreline of marshes.

Although we may sometimes think of marshes as murky, swampy, or smelly, marshes are highly sensitive environments with soft sediments that support a huge diversity of creatures, including birds, mammals, fish, crabs, and shrimp. Marshes are also incredibly productive habitats that act as nurseries for many juvenile organisms and whose large amounts of decaying plant material are the base of a complex food web. They also provide other important ecological services like storm surge protection and shoreline stabilization and water quality improvement. In many instances, when marshes get oiled, the best response action is no response—meaning no human-led cleanup. In the spill response world, we call this “natural recovery.”

Natural recovery is often the best option for an oiled marsh because nearly all types of active cleanup will include some unintentional habitat damage or disturbance. This can stem from the type of equipment used, the way it is used, or the mere presence of cleanup workers disturbing wildlife or trampling the marsh vegetation. The last 40 years of cleaning up oil spills in marshes has demonstrated that active, aggressive cleaning can cause as much or more short- and long-term damage than leaving the oil in place to break down naturally.

When Natural Recovery Is Not Enough

So, when over 30 miles of sensitive salt marshes in Louisiana’s Northern Barataria Bay were heavily oiled as a result of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, natural recovery was the preferred approach. However, in the areas with the most substantial and persistent oiling, the oil did not appear to be weathering or naturally degrading over time.

After the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill, a heavy layer of oiled vegetation mats were preventing the thick emulsified oil underneath from breaking down along Barataria Bay’s marshes. (NOAA/Scott Zengel)

In these areas, a dense, heavy layer of oiled, matted vegetation was lying overtop thick, fresher-looking emulsified oil (meaning it had water mixed in it). The vegetation mats were limiting the oil’s exposure to sunlight, air circulation, and tidal flushing—all natural factors which help break down oil. A number of “traditional” methods of marsh cleanup were tried earlier in the spill response, including low-pressure flushing with ambient seawater, skimming, vacuuming, applying materials to absorb the oil, and natural recovery. However, they performed poorly and in some cases caused additional damage to the marsh.

So what to do? Since the tried-and-true, traditional methods of cleanup weren’t working, this spill’s Shoreline Cleanup and Assessment Technique (SCAT) program (which surveys an affected shoreline after an oil spill) proposed a field test of various treatment methods, led by the oil spill science experts on NOAA’s Scientific Support Team. In addition to proposing a series of test treatments, they set aside several “no treatment” (natural recovery) sites with similar oiling conditions, and established nearby reference sites as well, both for later comparison to the treated sites.

All of the proposed test treatments included cutting the oiled vegetation to expose the thick oil beneath it, in order to accelerate weathering of the oil. In addition to vegetation cutting, the following treatments were tried:

• Using two different chemical shoreline cleaners that are designed to make oil “lift and float.”
• Low-pressure flushing.
• Marsh vacuuming.

Weed Whackers, Rakes, and Hedge Trimmers

As it turned out, conventional “weed whackers” were no match for the dense, heavily oiled vegetation mats, even when we tried different cutting techniques and cutting attachments. So we raked the vegetation.  In the end, the only treatment that showed promise was the vegetation raking.

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As we monitored the treated plots, however, we found that the ebb and flow of the tide laid the raked vegetation back down on the marsh, reforming the oiled vegetation mats and continuing to trap the layer of thick emulsified oil on the marsh surface. It quickly became apparent to us SCAT program scientists that any successful treatment would require removing the oiled vegetation. A fresh round of investigation into cutting devices began.

Ultimately, a heavy-duty, commercial power hedge trimmer was the solution. It was successfully used to cut through the dense, heavily oiled mats of laid-over vegetation and to cut oiled vegetation that still stood upright. By aggressively raking the oiled vegetation and the thick oil layer on the surface of the marsh, we were able to remove much of the oil, reducing the surface oiling and risk of re-oiling other vegetation.

Initial monitoring showed that this approach resulted in completely removing the heavily oiled vegetation mats in the raked and cut plots. Most importantly, the character of the remaining oil on the marsh area changed from mostly thick emulsified oil to a predominance of more weathered surface oil residue that posed far less of a risk to wildlife or for refloating and re-oiling the marsh.

In all, seven miles of the most heavily oiled areas in Northern Barataria Bay, La., were treated by raking and cutting. Most of this work was conducted by hand, using walk boards to reduce the foot traffic in the marsh. It appears that the treatment was effective and that impacts to the marsh from the cleanup action were limited.

NOAA SCAT team scientist, Carl Childs.

We are continuing to monitor the test plots in order to fully understand whether this cleanup action was the best approach and what the ecological effects or impacts of “treatment” versus “no treatment” are. Stay tuned for a future post that explores the results of the data collected thus far.

Nicolle Rutherford, blog author and SCAT team scientist.

Nicolle Rutherford is a biologist in NOAA Office of Response and Restoration’s Emergency Response Division. Nicolle received a bachelor’s degree in marine science from the University of South Carolina, Coastal Carolina College, and a master’s degree from Western Washington University in biology with a concentration in marine and estuarine science.

NOAA contractor and SCAT team scientist, Scott Zengel.

After graduate school, she and her husband served in the U.S. Peace Corps in the Republic of Vanuatu. Upon her return to the States, Nicolle worked for an environmental consulting firm as a wetland ecologist for several years before taking a position as a biologist at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps). She came to NOAA from the Corps.

For Accidents of Chemistry, a NOAA Tool to Help Predict and Prevent Disaster

This is a post by Vicki Loe with OR&R chemist Jim Farr.

On April 10, 1995, at Powell Duffryn Terminals, Inc. in Savannah, Ga., a chemical tank storing turpentine exploded, triggering a scenario similar to our hypothetical example. The facility stored hundreds of thousands of chemicals in tanks. The explosion resulted in widespread public evacuations and extensive damage. Here, black smoke rises from the fire. (NOAA)

Imagine you’re a chemical engineer in charge of safety at a chemical storage facility supporting the pulp and paper industry. You’re having a normal day when—suddenly—there has been an explosion. It has affected three of the large tanks on the property.

One tank, containing sodium hydrosulfide (NaHS), is damaged and leaking. Sodium hydrosulfide is a chemical used to break down cellulose, the fibrous ingredient in plant cell walls, into pulp, making it a key chemical in the paper industry.

The tank next to it, also damaged by the explosion and now leaking, holds a tank-cleaning solution that contained the corrosive chemical hydrochloric acid (HCl). The third tank, the one that caught on fire and caused the explosion, contained a petroleum distillate material. It damaged the first two tanks, causing their contents to drain into a common area and resulting in a combination of sodium hydrosulfide and hydrochloric acid.

The Chemical Reactivity Worksheet

How would you communicate this scenario—and its potential dangers—to the emergency responders who are on their way to the scene? During chemical accidents, there are frequently many unknowns: What was released? Did it mix with anything? What might happen?

Responders at the 1995 incident caused by a turpentine tank explosion at Powell Duffryn Terminals, Inc. storage facility in Savannah, Ga. (NOAA)

NOAA’s Chemical Reactivity Worksheet is a free software program you can use to find out about the chemical reactivity of thousands of common hazardous chemicals and predict the hazards associated with mixing two materials together. (Reactivity is the tendency of substances to undergo chemical change, which can result in hazards—such as heat generation or toxic gas byproducts.)

By consulting the Chemical Reactivity Worksheet, you, the safety officer, would quickly learn that when sodium hydrosulfide and hydrochloric acid combine, hydrogen sulfide (H₂S) gas could result. That gas is both toxic and highly flammable—possibly creating a very dangerous situation. To protect public safety, the affected area would require immediate evacuation.

Updating Software for Chemical Safety

A new version of the Chemical Reactivity Worksheet (version 3.0) has just been released and is available for download from NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration website: http://response.restoration.noaa.gov/reactivityworksheet. The latest version is a combination of the latest reactivity information and expert knowledge from NOAA and Dow Chemical.

The free software predicts potential hazards from mixing chemicals and is designed for use by safety planners and the chemical industry.  It is a tool that is intended to help to prevent accidents at chemical facilities and, once an accident occurs, to give valuable information about the possible hazards associated.

The work was done as part of NOAA and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s joint development of the CAMEO software suite, which provides valuable emergency response and planning tools for releases of hazardous materials. The Center for Chemical Process Safety also contributed to the project.

No Oil Spilled, Though Fire Continues after Tug and Barge Hit Gas Pipeline near Louisiana’s Bayou Perot

A pipeline burns after it was hit by the tug boat Shanon E. Setton, near Bayou Perot 30 miles south of New Orleans, March 13, 2013. The Coast Guard is working with federal, state and local agencies in response to this incident to ensure the safety of responders and contain and clean up any oil that may leak. (U.S. Coast Guard)

NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration is assisting the U.S. Coast Guard after a tug and barge hit a liquefied petroleum gas pipeline the evening of March 12, 2013, resulting in a fire near Bayou Perot, 30 miles south of New Orleans, La.

While the fire was initially reported to be 100 feet tall, it appears to have reduced in size by approximately 30%. The tug, UTV Shanon E. Settoon, carrying 1,000 gallons (24 barrels) of diesel fuel, has grounded, with the fire continuing to burn next to it. The barge it was pushing, Oil Barge SMI 572, appears to remain intact, along with the approximately 93,000 gallons (2,215 barrels) of crude oil it is carrying.

NOAA oceanographers have used the GNOME oil spill forecasting software program to model the projected path of potentially spilled oil and will continue to do so on a daily basis. According to the Coast Guard, “Visual imagery initially indicated potential pockets of crude oil; however, those areas have been determined to be particulate ash from the liquefied natural gas burn off.”

The NOAA Scientific Support Coordinator in Louisiana has been helping aerial observers map their findings and advising the Coast Guard on various natural resource and pollution response issues. While on an aerial overflight of the area Wednesday afternoon, neither he nor the other observers noted any oil or sheen on the water, and observations of the nearby shoreline have also been free of oil.

Before beginning a pollution investigation and salvage operations, the Coast Guard has been allowing the vessel and residual gas to burn off. The response has sent out containment boom to surround the vessels and skimmers have been deployed for cleanup. The damaged Chevron pipeline, carrying liquefied petroleum gas, has been shut down.

Although there were injuries, all four crew members were able to escape from the tug.

Watch a U.S. Coast Guard video of an aerial view of the pipeline burning, the damaged vessels, and the response efforts.

Find the latest updates at the Coast Guard Newsroom.

Broken Louisiana Wellhead No Longer Leaking Oily Mixture

Leaking wellhead in Lake Ecaille, located in the Mississippi River Delta, on February 27, 2013. (U.S. Coast Guard)

A damaged wellhead leaking an oily mixture in the Mississippi River Delta has been successfully capped after two days. The U.S. Coast Guard in New Orleans contacted NOAA and the Office of Response and Restoration on February 26 after a 42-foot crew boat owned by Swift Energy collided with an inactive wellhead in Lake Grande Ecaille, a saltwater bay approximately 11 miles west of Empire, La.

The wellhead was broken and began releasing a combination of oil and water, though the exact content of the release is not known. Containment booms and skimming equipment have been deployed to limit the extent of the oil spill and begin cleaning it up. According to the Coast Guard, “The estimated maximum potential discharge from the wellhead was fewer than 1,260 gallons of crude oil and 1,134 gallons of oily water per day.” The well has been inactive for about six years, and no flow lines are attached, reducing the risk of further oil being released and indication of well abandonment.

Office of Response and Restoration emergency response staff have provided oil spill trajectories forecasting the path of the oil and offered counsel on environmental resources at risk to help the Coast Guard know where the oily mixture is likely to go and what habitat is in need of protection. There has been a concern about a potential health and fire hazard posed by hydrogen sulfide released in the oil. This area is a known “sour” crude oil field which contains hydrogen sulfide (a toxic gas). The well was capped and secured the afternoon of Thursday, February 28.

Science of Oil Spills Training Now Accepting Applications for 2013

During NOAA’s Science of Oil Spills classes, the U.S. Coast Guard and other oil spill responders gain practical knowledge they can put to work while protecting our nation’s coasts. (NOAA)

NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration, a leader in providing scientific information in response to marine pollution, has scheduled its annual Science of Oil Spills (SOS) class for June 25–28, 2013, in Seattle.

We will accept applications for this class through May 10 and notify applicants regarding their application status no later than May 24, 2013.

SOS classes help spill responders increase their understanding of oil spill science when analyzing spills and making risk-based decisions. They are designed for new and mid-level spill responders.

These three-and-a-half-day trainings cover:

• Fate and behavior of oil spilled in the environment.
• An introduction to oil chemistry and toxicity.
• A review of basic spill response options for open water and shorelines.
• Spill case studies.
• Principles of ecological risk assessment.
• A field trip.
• An introduction to damage assessment techniques.
• Determining cleanup endpoints.

To view the topics for the next SOS class, download a sample agenda [PDF, 117 KB].

Please be advised that classes are not filled on a first-come, first-served basis. The Office of Response and Restoration tries to diversify the participant composition to ensure a variety of perspectives and experiences to enrich the workshop for the benefit of all participants. The class will be limited to 40 participants. No other SOS classes are planned through fiscal year 2013 (ending September 30).

For more information, and to learn how to apply for the class, visit the SOS Classes page on the Office of Response and Restoration website.

Looking out for Sea Lions and Salmon Before a Grounded Rig Could Spill a Drop of Oil

This is a post by OR&R’s Alaska Regional Coordinator Dr. Sarah Allan.

Here you can see the rocky coast and habitats near where the conical drilling unit Kulluk sat aground on the southeast shore of Sitkalidak Island about 40 miles southwest of Kodiak City, Alaska, in 40 mph winds and 20-foot seas on Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2013. (U.S. Coast Guard)

Fortunately, when Royal Dutch Shell’s offshore drilling platform, the Kulluk, ran aground on a remote Alaskan island on New Year’s Eve, it did not lead to an oil spill. However, the rig held 140,000 gallons of diesel fuel, and throughout the response, the potential for a spill remained a concern.

This was especially true because the Kulluk was located in an area with many sensitive natural resources, including harbor seals, marine birds, critical habitat for Steller sea lions, and salmon streams. On top of that, pacific cod and tanner crab harvests take place in that part of Sitkalidak Island, south of Kodiak. Subsistence foragers from the Old Harbor Native village harvest razor clams from a bed near the grounding site.

In light of the potential for an oil spill, restoration specialists from NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration, collaborating with federal and state natural resource trustees, began planning an assessment of the possible harm to natural resources. What if the oil did spill and impact those natural resources? How would we determine what was injured and how badly?

Spill Today, Gone Tomorrow

One of the first steps in this planning effort was to consider where the diesel might go if it spilled and what natural resources it might impact. Spill responders—those considering oil cleanup options—often see diesel spills as less of a concern than spills that involve thicker, heavier oils. This is due to the way that diesel acts when it is spilled on the ocean surface; most of it evaporates into the air and disperses into the water in a few hours, especially in high winds and waves. In this case, NOAA scientists estimated that almost all of the Kulluk’s diesel would evaporate or disperse in 4–5 hours if it spilled. This means there would be very little oil for cleanup workers to try to recover from the water’s surface.

The Kulluk was grounded near shore and, in the event of a spill, the wind and waves would have pushed the diesel towards the shoreline. In this scenario, diesel could have impacted nearby ocean areas, beaches, rocky shorelines, and stream outlets. The Unified Command took precautionary measures during the grounding and removal of the Kulluk, which included placing containment boom across the mouths of streams in the area to keep out any potentially spilled diesel.

A Toxic Shock

A life raft belonging to the conical drilling unit Kulluk, sits on the beach adjacent to the rig 40 miles southwest of Kodiak City, Thursday, Jan. 3, 2012. (U.S. Coast Guard)

Though diesel may not remain for very long in the environment, it is very toxic to many aquatic species. A diesel fuel spill would have had an immediate and negative effect on the environment. In high seas, like those around the grounded Kulluk, as much as 90 percent of the diesel would disperse into the water. The dispersed diesel could affect marine organisms that live in the water column, on the ocean bottom, or along the shoreline.

Past spills of comparable fuels in similar marine environments have killed large numbers of organisms living in the water column or on the ocean bottom in the area where the oil was released: the barge North Cape grounded and spilled oil off Rhode Island during bad weather in 1996, and the ship Tampico Maru grounded and spilled diesel on a remote, rough shoreline in Northern Baja California in 1957.

Diesel is acutely toxic to many zooplankton, bivalve, and crustacean species as well as unhatched and young salmon. Organisms can become “tainted” when they are either exposed to diesel at levels that don’t kill them (sublethal) or when they eat other organisms exposed to those levels. In that case, responders would test seafood for safety, and those of us evaluating environmental damages would assess marine organisms’ exposure levels with additional testing. Even these sublethal exposures can cause toxic effects that need to be considered in a damage assessment.

While initially preparing for a potential damage assessment, we focused on planning for water, sediment, and bivalve (razor clams and blue mussels) sampling as well as on planning shoreline assessments for evidence of injured or dead animals. If we could do this sampling before and/or immediately after a spill, we would have a more accurate assessment of damages to natural resources. Assessing exposure and injury to natural resources is time sensitive, especially in the case of a short-lived contaminant like diesel.

Weather Or Not

However, the far-flung location of the grounding site, as well as the harsh weather conditions, would make sampling in the area challenging. Our planning had to address those logistical challenges. That meant having resources and personnel standing by 40 miles away in Kodiak City, Alaska; arranging for transportation to the site of the rig; securing permission to access the area, and procuring the resources we needed to sample. Given the conditions, accessing the site would have required a helicopter or boat trip to the island and overland transit through grizzly bear habitat, across rough terrain, and private property.

Again, we’re happy that the diesel aboard the Kulluk stayed in its tanks while the rig was grounded and moved off of Sitkalidak Island. But new opportunities for oil drilling, commerce, and tourism in the Arctic are expected to bring more marine traffic through these areas. That creates more opportunities for accidents. It is important for us to be prepared to undertake a natural resource damage assessment in the event of an oil spill. Understanding what is at risk, what to expect from the particular oil spilled, and how it all fits in a specific environment is the first step.

Dr. Sarah Allan.

Dr. Sarah Allan has been working with NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration Emergency Response Division and as the Alaska Regional Coordinator for the Assessment and Restoration Division, based in Anchorage, Alaska, since February, 2012. Her work focuses on planning for natural resource damage assessment and restoration in the event of an oil spill in the Arctic.

NOAA Tracks Path of Possible Japan Tsunami Dock off Washington Coast

This is a post by Amy MacFadyen, oceanographer and modeler in the Office of Response and Restoration’s Emergency Response Division.

The dock washed up on the rocky northern coast of Washington state, as viewed from a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter on December 18, 2012. (U.S. Coast Guard)

As a NOAA oceanographer working in pollution response, part of my job is to predict where pollutants (mostly oil) spilled into the ocean will end up. Sometimes I am asked to forecast possible paths, or trajectories, for other objects spotted at sea—such as a large dock recently reported to be floating off the coast of Washington state, approximately 16 nautical miles northwest of Grays Harbor.

We suspect [Editor's note 1/18/13: Japan has confirmed this as a piece of tsunami debris.] that this dock began its oceanic journey in March of 2011 at the Port of Misawa, Japan, following the devastating Tōhoku earthquake and subsequent tsunami. Three* docks were ripped away from this port.  After approximately 15 months at sea, one of the docks turned up on Agate Beach near Newport, Ore., in June 2012. A second dock suspected** to be from Misawa was spotted offshore of the Hawaiian Islands in September. The vast difference in the paths of these three docks is a good illustration of how turbulent ocean currents and winds can scatter widely objects floating at sea.

When this latest dock was spotted on Friday, December 14, we at NOAA were asked to forecast where winds and currents might move the dock over the next few days. The dock is a large, unlit, concrete structure and hence posed a significant hazard to navigation. Furthermore, with stormy weather and strong onshore winds in the forecast, it seemed likely the dock would end up on the beach. Many beaches along the northern Washington coast are quite remote, varying from sandy or rocky beaches to cliffs dropping right down to the water. Depending on where the dock came ashore, access could prove difficult and might allow possible invasive species hitching a ride on the dock time to spread into local ecosystems. To be better prepared to take action, we needed to know where and when the dock might come ashore so it could be located quickly.

In order to predict the trajectory of an object floating at sea, we require forecasts of winds and ocean currents. Those of us who live in the Pacific Northwest are especially familiar with the difficulty involved in predicting the weather. Although weather forecasts are generally reliable for the first few days of a forecast period, a forecast always contains some uncertainty which tends to increase over time. For example, this weekend’s weather forecast is generally more accurate than next weekend’s forecast.

Forecasting ocean currents faces similar difficulties, which may be compounded by a lack of observations. There are few (if any) direct measurements of real-time ocean currents on the Washington coast. In addition, there is further uncertainty about how a floating object such as a large dock will move in response to the currents and winds. For example, an object that is floating high in the water will “feel” the winds more than an object floating lower in the water. While we could estimate this effect for the dock, it adds another source of uncertainty to the mix.

This map of the northern Washington coast shows an example output from the GNOME model for the predicted “best guess” area (red ellipse) and uncertainty boundary (blue ellipse). The location where the dock was found is shown by the black arrow. (NOAA)

So what can we do with all this uncertainty when “I don’t know” is not an acceptable answer? The approach we took was twofold. In addition to providing a “best estimate” trajectory for the dock, in which we considered the wind and currents forecasts as truth, we also ran multiple scenarios in our trajectory model to determine where else the dock possibly could end up. These additional scenarios might use different values approximating how much the dock gets pushed along like a sailboat or they might adjust the wind and current forecasts slightly to see how this affects the projected path of the dock.

After running the trajectory model multiple times, we produced a map that indicated the most likely area that the dock would come ashore, but the map also included a larger area of uncertainty around it (an “uncertainty boundary”) where the dock might be found if, for example, the currents were stronger than predicted.

Because the dock was not spotted again after the initial report on December 14, our trajectory could only narrow down the search area to an approximately 50 mile stretch of the Washington coast (remember, forecast error grows with time).

However, using the forecast guidance, state, federal, and tribal representatives mobilized search teams, and the dock was located on the afternoon of December 18 by a Coast Guard helicopter aerial survey. The dock had been washed ashore, most likely sometime during the evening before, on a rugged stretch of coastline north of the Hoh River. Access to the region is difficult, but personnel from the National Park Service and Washington State Fish and Wildlife are attempting to reach the dock to sample it for invasive species and to attach a tracking buoy in case it refloats before it can be salvaged.

Here you can see an example animation of our trajectory model GNOME showing a potential path of the dock. Particles are released in the model at the position where the dock was initially sighted. The particles move under the influence of winds and ocean currents. They also spread apart over time; this is simulating the small-scale turbulence in the winds and currents. This particular scenario was run after the dock was stranded and uses observed winds from a nearby weather station (wind direction and strength is shown by the arrow on the upper right) and a northward coastal current of approximately 1 knot.

Download the video animation showing the potential path of the dock off the coast of Washington [Quicktime].

*[UPDATE 4/5/2013: This story originally stated that four docks were missing from Misawa, Japan and that "one of the four turned up several weeks later on an island south of Misawa." We now know only three docks were swept from Misawa in the 2011 tsunami, and none were found on a Japanese island.]

**The dock near Hawaii has not been confirmed by the Japanese Consulate as being from Misawa.

Amy MacFadyen

Amy MacFadyen is a physical oceanographer at the Emergency Response Division of the Office of Response and Restoration (NOAA). The Emergency Response Division provides scientific support for oil and chemical spill response — a key part of which is trajectory forecasting to predict the movement of spills. During the Deepwater Horizon/BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Amy helped provide daily
trajectories to the incident command. Before moving to NOAA, Amy was at the University of Washington, first as a graduate student then as a postdoctoral researcher. Her research examined transport of harmful algal blooms from offshore initiation sites to the Washington coast.

What Are the Increased Risks From Transporting Tar Sands Oil?

This is a guest post by University of Washington graduate students Robin, Terry, Shanese, Jeff, Ali, and Colin.

In July of 2010, an Enbridge-owned pipeline spilled oil — which later turned out to be diluted bitumen from Canadian tar sands — into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan. Because the heavier elements of the oil became submerged in the river, response-related boat traffic trying to remove the oil ended up crushing freshwater mussels. The scientists shown here were assessing those impacts. (NOAA)

What are tar sands?

How are they different than other forms of oil, and why have they been such a hot topic in the news recently?

What environmental risks might tar sands oil pose if spilled during transportation?

How would this affect NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration (OR&R)?

As tar sands production continues to rise in North America, these are some of the core questions NOAA hopes to answer—and therefore, are the focus of our research. Our project team of six graduate students at the University of Washington is working to gather information that will help inform OR&R’s preparedness and response efforts for potential spills of tar sands oil.

Tar Sands: The Basics

Tar sands, also referred to as oil sands, are a combination of clay, sand, water, and heavy black viscous oil called bitumen. They can be extracted and processed to separate the bitumen, which is upgraded to synthetic crude oil and refined to make asphalt, gasoline, and jet fuel.

Bitumen. (Government of Alberta, Canada)

Because of its thick consistency (which resembles peanut butter), bitumen, unlike most conventional crude oils, must be diluted with a cocktail of other petroleum compounds before it is able to flow through pumps and tanks or pipelines for transport. This thinner, more fluid product is called diluted bitumen or dilbit. Another similar blend made from bitumen and synthetic crude oil is called synthetic bitumen or synbit.

Over the past decade, this resource which was previously uneconomical due to the high cost of extraction has become profitable as oil prices have increased and extraction technologies have improved. While many countries, including the U.S., have known deposits of tar sands, the world’s largest reserves are located across three deposits in northern Alberta, Canada—the Athabasca, Cold Lake, and Peace River deposits. The Government of Alberta estimates its total reserves of bitumen at about 170 billion barrels.

A map of current and proposed Canadian and U.S. oil pipelines which carry tar sands oils. It includes the proposed TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline which would cross the U.S.-Canadian border and six U.S. states. (Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers/The Facts on Oil Sands Report 2012)

Increased Spill Risks and NOAA

Canada has been producing tar sands products since 1967, but recently, production has ramped up substantially.

Because Canada exports most of its tar sands products, the transportation infrastructure for bitumen—pipelines, rail, and ships— has been expanding as well.

A notable example is the proposed TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline which would cross the Canadian-U.S. boundary, extending from Alberta to Texas. Other proposed projects would increase transportation capacity for tar sands products on both the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts. Expanding traffic to markets in the U.S., Asia, and elsewhere is predicted to increase the potential for spills in and around the Great Lakes, Washington’s Puget Sound, and at other major U.S. shipping terminals and river crossings.

NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration has the responsibility to respond to and provide scientific support for oil and chemical spills in U.S. coastal waters. This means OR&R must be able to anticipate and plan for the increased risks that a tar sands oil spill might bring.

At present, knowledge about the chemical properties and behavior of tar sands products during a marine spill is limited. For example, would the diluted bitumen float or sink in the brackish waters of many ports, where rivers’ fresh water mixes with salty seawater? How should responders be ready to remove that oil if it were suspended in the water column instead of floating on the surface?

These gaps in information make effective spill planning and response more difficult for NOAA and its partners. Key information about tar sands’ chemical and physical properties is proprietary, and regulatory agencies’ knowledge of where and when this material is being transported is limited as well. OR&R has been learning on the job how to deal with some of these challenges, as in the 2010 case of an Enbridge pipeline spilling what later turned out to be tar sands oil into Michigan’s Kalamazoo River.

Project Scope

Over the past three months we have begun investigating key environmental, economic, and transportation issues facing tar sands oil production. We have met with key players, including NOAA scientists and responders, U.S. Coast Guard, Washington Department of Ecology, oil industry representatives, and environmental groups, to define our research questions and the project scope. Currently at the halfway point of our project, we are meeting with NOAA to discuss preliminary findings and further refine our research goals for OR&R’s benefit.

Here’s a peek at what we’ve found so far:

• To be transported, bitumen is diluted with a variety of petroleum compounds, and some of this information may be considered trade secrets and is not generally shared, with potential implications for human health and environmental impacts.
• Because the base bitumen product has a similar density to water, it has the potential to sink when spilled and undergo significant changes once in the environment—an important consideration for spill response and cleanup.
• Canadian tar sands are currently transported across Canada and the United States by ship, rail, and pipeline, with plans to expand substantially.
• Because the tar sands industry is relatively new and key information is proprietary, there are gaps in knowledge that warrant additional information sharing and research to improve NOAA’s and other government agencies’ readiness to deal with tar sands oil spills.

The project will wrap up in March 2013, and we will present our final report to the Office and Response and Restoration. We will update our progress on this blog as we get closer to finishing the final report. We look forward to hearing your feedback.

Learn more at our project website: NOAA Oil Sands Project.

Robin, Terry, Shanese, Jeff, Ali, and Colin are graduate students at the University of Washington in programs at the Evans School of Public Affairs, the Foster School of Business, and the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences. OR&R is sponsoring their research project, “Understanding the Risks from Transportation of Tar Sands and Diluted Bitumen” as part of the Environmental Management Certificate Program at the University of Washington. It focuses on providing information to OR&R that will help inform preparedness and response to future spills.