On August 28, 2005, Hurricane Katrina was in the Gulf of Mexico, where it powered up to a Category 5 storm on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale, packing winds estimated at 175 mph. (NOAA)
June is here, and with it comes the start of the 2013 Atlantic hurricane season.
Last week I was at a regional emergency response meeting in Addison, Texas, and sat next to Greg Pollock, Deputy Commissioner for the Texas General Land Office. During the meeting, Greg nudged my shoulder, showing me an email alerting him of the potential for Hurricane Barbara to cross from the Pacific Ocean into the Bay of Campeche—making it a potential threat to the Gulf of Mexico.
Following Greg’s prompt, I went online and read the updated forecast from NOAA. Hurricane Barbara would impact southern Mexico but likely dissipate crossing it (which is exactly what happened to this tropical storm). At the time, the threat to the Gulf of Mexico was low, but still something to keep an eye on.
Ready to Help Before, During, and After a Disaster
On the front line is NOAA’s National Weather Service, the trusted, round-the-clock source of information about severe weather threats. Emergency managers and the public alike depend on them to provide accurate and timely storm predictions and forecasts. I use their online information daily to stay up-to-speed on what storms may be developing for the Gulf of Mexico. The Disaster Response Center provides NOAA with additional support and coordination during natural and manmade disasters. We put our effort into being prepared to respond.
Living in or on the edge of the coastal zone in Louisiana and Alabama most of my life, I do not take hurricane season lightly. This weekend, I’ll spend time checking on the status of my hurricane supplies (find out what you should have in your disaster supply kit) and ensuring my daughter, who attends college in New Orleans, has thought through her plans of when and where to evacuate should a storm threaten southeast Louisiana. Coming home to be with her dad in Mobile, Ala., may not be her best option. The many other NOAA emergency response staff and I likely would not be evacuating, but rather positioning ourselves and our resources to help with the consequences of a severe tropical storm or hurricane. Every year, we hope for the best and plan for the worst. We can’t control nature, but we can control how prepared we are for what it throws at us.
Are You Prepared?
If you haven’t made your hurricane preparedness plans yet, you shouldn’t wait any longer now that the 2013 Atlantic hurricane season has officially started.
Here, we take a peek into the world of science policy (and the budgets that make it possible) as we hear from Dave Westerholm, director of NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration, about what we can expect as a starting point for this office in the next fiscal year.
Wetland grasses replanted in Texas after a successful damage assessment and restoration process. (NOAA/National Marine Fisheries Service/Jamie Schubert)
The White House recently released the President’s Budget for Fiscal Year 2014. This budget offers several exciting opportunities for research, development, and growth in response and restoration activities at NOAA. The budget contains close to $4 million in increases for the Office of Response and Restoration (OR&R).
While meeting the needs of those critical issues, we have continued to support the ongoing response and damage assessment for the Deepwater Horizon/BP oil spill, looked forward to address emerging challenges in the U.S. Arctic by launching an Environmental Response Management Application (ERMA) online mapping tool for the Arctic region and contributed our expertise to interagency planning and preparedness in support of ongoing energy exploration in the Arctic.
I am eager to show you what OR&R can do with the latest budget from the President that will build upon our recent achievements:
The fiscal year 2014 budget proposes a $2 million increase for Natural Resource Damage Assessment to increase technical, strategic, and legal support so we can more quickly move more oil spill and hazardous waste site cases toward settlement and support the restoration process. We anticipate that this increase will more than pay for itself in settlement funds recovered from responsible parties and deliver significant return on investment for the American public.
There is an increase of $1 million for the NOAA Marine Debris Program to fund a variety of programs and efforts to reduce and prevent the impacts of marine debris.This includes funding for:
research programs and academic institutions with demonstrated expertise in the economic impacts of marine debris.
alternatives to fishing gear that pose potential marine threats.
enhanced tracking, recovery, and identification of lost and discarded fishing gear.
efforts to reduce the amount of baseline debris from ocean and non-ocean based sources.
Additionally, the Marine Debris Program’s regional marine debris coordination program will receive a funding increase to enhance regional efforts and develop response plans for states in the Northeast, Southeast, and Gulf of Mexico as described under the Marine Debris Act. These plans will help federal, state, and local authorities plan and prepare for the next major marine debris cleanup event, for example, a hurricane.
This budget also proposes funding increases for emergency response preparedness in the Arctic and Gulf of Mexico and for our innovative ERMA tool to transition to a cloud computing platform. These funds will allow OR&R to improve our services through participation in more regional response exercises with governmental and private partners and enhance scientific support for the Arctic through increased direct engagement with Arctic communities.
I invite you to review the NOAA Fiscal Year 2014 Budget Summary [PDF] for more detailed information on all of NOAA’s proposed activities in the President’s budget.
Each budgetary increase provides a significant opportunity to build NOAA’s capacity to assess future oil and chemical spill impacts, plan for increased maritime activity in the Arctic, and expand our scientific and tactical capabilities using state-of-the-art information management. The budget also will help NOAA to develop capabilities that will lead to more effective strategies to prevent and mitigate the effects of marine debris. I hope to work with our office’s many partners and supporters in the coming months to ensure OR&R’s capacity will continue to meet the rising tide of ocean and coastal challenges to protect lives, property, and the environment and to keep commerce moving.
Dave Westerholm
Dave Westerholm currently serves as the Director of NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration. Prior to NOAA, he had several years of corporate experience as both Senior Operations Director and Vice President for Maritime Security, Policy and Communications for Anteon Corporation and then General Dynamics. He is a retired Coast Guard Captain with over 27 years of experience in a variety of fields including maritime safety, port security, and environmental protection.
The San Miguel Natural Reserve in Puerto Rico is made up of 422 acres of protected coastal lands and was acquired to compensate the public after a barge ran aground, damaging coral and spilling oil near San Juan in 1994. (NOAA)
Spending time at the beach is reported to be one of America’s favorite vacation memories [PDF]. So, when our coasts become polluted, the effects can seem both traumatic and personal: damaged habitats; dirtied water; injured birds, fish, wildlife, and plants; and blemished places where we boat, fish, and play. But thanks to NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration, we help reverse these impacts—whether from an oil spill, toxic chemicals, or marine debris—through our scientific solutions for protecting and restoring our favorite natural places.
To celebrate National Travel and Tourism Week (May 4-12), we have gathered a few examples of the places you can visit that our office is helping protect and restore.
San Juan, Puerto Rico
Sandy beaches, swaying palm trees, and turquoise waters—Puerto Rico is the quintessential tropical vacation destination. Besides surfing, snorkeling, and swimming at its more than 270 miles of beaches, this Caribbean island offers jungle adventures, resort relaxation, and Spanish colonial history. But on an island only 110 miles long and 40 miles wide, the ocean is never far away.
On January 7, 1994, just before dawn, a barge the length of a football field plowed into the picturesque surf near San Juan, Puerto Rico. When it grounded, the Tank Barge Morris J. Berman damaged coral reefs and spilled 800,000 gallons of a thick, black fuel oil into the deep blue waters off Puerto Rico’s Atlantic coast. After the grounding, the barge continued to leak, spilling more than 85,000 gallons of oily water as it was towed offshore and scuttled (intentionally sunk) 23 miles northeast of San Juan. About 169 miles of ocean and bay shorelines were affected by the spilled oil, disrupting beachgoers, boaters, and sportfishers for up to three months in some areas. The oil also crept onto the shoreline of several historic sites, including San Juan National Historic Site, a National Park and UNESCO World Heritage Site. And in the end, nearly 111,000 square feet of coral reef were damaged from the grounded barge and subsequent response measures.
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NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration was involved in a variety of activities from the start: forecasting the oil’s spread, performing aerial surveys of the spill, assessing impacted shorelines, and advising the Coast Guard on potential environmental impacts of sinking the leaking barge. Our involvement carried beyond spill cleanup and extended to evaluating and determining how the spill injured natural resources, which included people’s use of them. To compensate the public for the spill’s impacts, we helped implement a suite of projects focused on restoring damaged reefs, recreational beach use, and lost tourism at San Juan National Historic Site.
To begin restoring the coral ecosystems, NOAA and our partners built the Condado Coral Reef Trail, comprised of three underwater educational trails adjacent to a public beach. Along each trail, we placed ten pre-made artificial cement reefs, intended to establish similar reef habitat to that damaged by the barge grounding. This project wrapped up in the fall of 2008 and provides an incredible first-hand opportunity to learn about coral reefs and restoring natural resources in Puerto Rico.
San Francisco, California
According to the San Francisco Travel Association, more than 16.5 million visitors traveled to San Francisco, Calif., in 2012. Known as the “City by the Bay,” San Francisco is closely connected to its maritime heritage and marine resources. Fisherman’s Wharf is a popular northern waterfront area home to the city’s fleet of fishing boats, many of whose owners have been fishing there for three generations and bringing in the fresh seafood both locals and tourists savor. The Golden Gate Bridge, the city’s most iconic bridge, links San Francisco Bay to the Pacific Ocean and its bustling maritime commerce.
Point Bonita is in the foreground, looking across sheens of oil (lighter colored) from the Cosco Busan spill and eastward to Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco Bay. (NOAA)
But on the typically foggy morning of November 7, 2007, the 900-foot cargo ship Cosco Busan slammed against the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge and caused one of the largest oil spills in the bay’s history. Scraping a 100-foot-long gash into the vessel’s side, the crash released 53,000 gallons of a thick fuel oil, which quickly dispersed into the surrounding waters and onto sensitive coastline both in the bay and along the outer coast. Similar to our efforts after the barge grounding in Puerto Rico, NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration provided forecasts of the oil’s path, aerial oil surveys, oiled shoreline assessment, and other scientific support for the spill response.
In the foreground, the Bay Bridge tower that was hit by the M/V Cosco Busan, spilling oil into San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean. Photo: November 9, 2007 (NOAA)
NOAA and our partners determined that, as a result, the incident oiled more than 3,300 acres of shoreline habitat, killed an estimated 6,849 birds and thousands of herring, and lost an estimated 1,079,900 possible recreational days for individuals. In addition, it temporarily closed a dozen urban beaches [PDF], and even shoreline along Alcatraz Island, a National Park and home to the infamous prison, suffered heavy oiling after the spill. More than $30 million was awarded from the company responsible to restore injured birds, fish, eelgrass vegetation, habitat, and lost outdoor recreation.
The bulk of these funds (tentatively $18.8 million) is allocated for a slew of improvements benefiting Bay Area recreational activities, such as picnicking, hiking, surfing, kiteboarding, fishing, and boating. These projects will take place in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, Point Reyes National Seashore, and other areas of the East Bay and San Mateo and Marin County. They range from improving beach and fishing access and enhancing trails and shorelines to repairing waterfront park infrastructure and supporting lifeguard and educational programs. Restoration is expected to begin in the summer of 2013, helping turn back the harmful effects of this oil spill on the City by the Bay.
Olympic Coast, Washington
A landscape view of the rugged Washington coast, with cleanup workers dismantling the dock and removing plastic foam to the right. Photo: March 18, 2013 (National Park Service/John Gussman)
Visitors flock each year to Washington’s breathtaking Olympic Peninsula to go hiking, camping, kayaking, and harvesting clams and oysters (just for starters). Driving the 350 miles along the Pacific Coast Scenic Byway, you can access an impressive amount of diversity along this state’s coast. From foggy sea stacks poking out of the Pacific Ocean to giant red cedars standing sentinel in old-growth forests to tide pools populated with vibrant orange and purple starfish, this coast abounds with natural wonders.
In December of 2012, however, a remote portion of the Olympic Coast received an unusual “visitor”: a 185 ton, 65-foot floating dock. Swept away from the Port of Misawa during Japan’s 2011 tsunami, it ended up beached within NOAA’s Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary and a designated wilderness portion of Olympic National Park. The dock was built out of plastic foam housed in steel-reinforced concrete, which had been damaged as changing tides and waves continued to shift the dock’s placement in the surf. A threat to the environment, visitors, and wildlife, its foam was escaping to the surrounding beach and waters, where it could have been eaten by the coast’s whales, seals, birds, and fish.
Staging the dock’s plastic foam for transport, when it was transferred off the coast via helicopter. Photo: March 18, 2013 (National Park Service/John Gussman)
According to the Washington Department of Ecology website, “the intertidal area of the Olympic Coast is home to the most diverse ecosystem of marine invertebrates and seaweeds on the west coast of North America … Leaving the dock in place could [have] result[ed] in the release of over 200 cubic yards of foam into federally protected waters and wilderness coast.”
Fortunately, in March 2013, the National Park Service and NOAA worked with a local salvage company to dismantle and remove this hazard to the coast, using both federal money and a generous donation from Japan to fund the project and ensuring the Olympic Coast’s visitors can enjoy its healthy habitats for years to come.
To learn more about NOAA’s work protecting the coastal places we love to visit, go to response.restoration.noaa.gov.
Water and sediment sampling on Morrow Lake near Battle Creek, Mich., during the response to the Enbridge pipeline spill of oil sands product. August 2, 2010 (U.S. Coast Guard)
Unless there is a big spill or accident, most people probably don’t think much about different types of crude oil, where it comes from, or how it is transported.
Yet there is an ongoing national debate about Canada’s Alberta oil sands and whether to complete the Keystone XL pipeline that would carry Alberta oil sands products to refineries in the U.S. Gulf Coast. This proposed pipeline has gotten a lot of attention, but there are existing pipelines carrying oil sands products around Canada and across the border into the U.S., as well as tanker, barge, and rail operations doing the same.
The Exxon Pegasus pipeline spill in Mayflower, Ark., on March 29, 2013, was a reminder that oil sands are already being transported and, whenever oil is transported, there is risk of a spill.
Oil sands are considered an unconventional oil type that has been growing in prominence as oil prices fluctuate and production technologies improve. As a result, there are many questions about how best to respond to spills of crude oil products derived from oil sands. One of the major concerns is the buoyancy of oil sands products, and their potential to sink, especially in sediment-laden waters. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is still cleaning up submerged oil from the July 2010 Enbridge pipeline spill in Michigan’s Kalamazoo River.
Last week, NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration participated in an Oil Sands Products Forum held at NOAA’s Western Regional Center in Seattle, Wash. The forum was sponsored by the Washington State Department of Ecology Spills Program, U.S. Coast Guard, and the Pacific States/British Columbia Oil Spill Task Force. The University of New Hampshire Center for Spills in the Environment facilitated the forum.
The two-day meeting included a full day of presentations and discussions about oil sands (also known as tar sands or bitumen) and their related products—covering everything from extraction, refining, and transportation to chemistry, how they move and react in the environment, and recent case studies of spill responses. Over 50 environmental specialists, oil spill planners, and responders attended from government agencies, tribal governments, nongovernmental organizations, and industry. Several oil sands experts from Canadian agencies and organizations also attended and presented.
On the second day, spill responders were presented with four different spill scenarios involving oil sands products, and the potential issues and challenges highlighted by the different spill situations were thoroughly discussed and recorded. Presentations and meeting notes will be made available through the Center for Spills in the Environment. The focus of this forum was not to discuss whether or not oil sands should be exploited as a resource, but rather, how to prepare better for and then deal effectively with a spill of oil sands products when it happens.
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)
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
This is a post by Ian Zelo, NOAA Oil Spill Coordinator for the Office of Response and Restoration.
In the wake of the 2010 oil spill on Adak Island, a field team member from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game breaks the ice to prepare a stream for sampling, in this case, for electrofishing. Field teams also were setting small fish traps, which do not require breaking up the ice like this. (NOAA)
In the center of Alaska’s rugged Aleutian Islands is the sparsely populated Adak Island. It was here—in the middle of winter on January 11, 2010—that workers at the Adak Petroleum Bulk Fuel facility were filling an underground tank with oil from the supply tanker Al Amerat. But as the tanker satmoored at the dock, its oil began overfilling the 4.8 million gallon underground tank. Up to 142,800 gallons of #2 diesel flowed out of the tank and eventually into the nearby salmon stream, Helmet Creek.
January 12, 2010 — Looking out on spilled oil and containment boom from the Adak Small Boat Harbor into Sweeper Cove and the fuel pier. (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service/Lisa Stitler)
Just over a mile after the creek passes the oil storage facility, it enters the Adak Small Boat Harbor, which is open to Sweeper Cove’s marine waters. Helmet Creek is equipped with gates that can partially close off the flow of the stream. That feature played to the response’s favor because spill response personnel were able to use these gates, along with boom and absorbent materials, to contain most of the oil spill in the stream.
Only a small percentage of the oil reached the boat harbor and Sweeper Cove. However, Alaska, NOAA, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, as natural resource trustees, were concerned about injury to both the stream and marine habitats and began a Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) to investigate potential environmental impacts.
Mission: Nearly Impossible
I got involved the next day, January 12, leading the NOAA team for this injury assessment. While the trustees were coordinating closely with the response, it was clear that we would need to send environmental assessment teams to the island to document the spill and its impacts on local habitats. However, there are only two flights to Adak each week. We knew the next flight to the island was on January 14 and we needed to be on it. This meant we had only two days to plan our initial assessment, recruit a field team to take samples, assemble the equipment, and finalize a field sampling protocol.
My role was to coordinate partners and tasks across two federal and four state agencies. On such a short time frame, we could not afford to work using the logical path we usually take: plan, recruit, gear up, and go. We had to scramble and do it all at once.
On the evening of January 13, our assembled field staff had flown to Anchorage, Alaska, with their field gear and were staged there for the 2:00 p.m. flight the next day. A local laboratory would assemble our sampling equipment and have it ready to pick up the following morning. We had a draft sampling protocol that would be finalized while the team was flying so they could be briefed on the details of their mission when they arrived. Things looked good.
At 6:30 a.m. on January 14, I got a call from one of our field staff. She had a personal emergency and had to pull out of the mission. Suddenly, things did not look good. To work safely and to accomplish our sampling goals, we needed four people on the team. I now had 8 hours to find another qualified person or we had to cancel. Working with our state partners, I identified and spoke to an Anchorage-based consulting firm by 8:30 a.m. We identified a potential replacement and called him on his drive into the office. By 9:00 he was on his way back home to get ready. With a little over an hour before the flight took off, we were able to get a contract in place to hire the consulting firm and buy his plane ticket. Once again, the mission was a go.
A member of the environmental assessment mission on Adak Island is holding the electrified wand and wearing the power pack for sampling fish via the electrofishing method. (NOAA)
Over the next five weeks, we sent three field teams to Adak to assess injury caused by the oil spill. I was on the second mission. During the assessment we fished both Helmet Creek and similar streams (for comparison) to document the fish communities. One of the methods we used is known as “electrofishing.” A common research technique, it involves sticking an electrified wand in the water to temporarily shock and disable nearby fish and allow us to catch them. We counted and collected fish for contaminant and developmental analysis. Mussels were collected from sites in and around Sweeper Cover and Finger Bay (a nearby bay farther than we thought the oil might travel, again, for comparison). Trustees also collected dozens of water and sediment samples and surveyed birds.
During this assessment, we had to deal with a few unusual challenges. We had to operate at night in order to work at low tide. We were excluded from Helmet Creek for half of the second assessment because the responders discovered unexploded ordnance (potentially explosive weapons), which had to be removed before we could continue. We worked in streams that were partially or fully covered in ice, and on the final mission our assessment was interrupted by a blizzard. Our teams had to recover fish traps from under several feet of snow.
Ready for Restoration
In the summer of 2011, the trustees worked cooperatively with Adak Petroleum Bulk Fuel facility, the responsible party, on scoping restoration options. NOAA and the other trustee partners are now nearing a cooperative settlement with the fuel facility. We’ve reviewed possible restoration projects that could compensate the public for the injuries caused by the spill and have drafted a Damage Assessment and Restoration Plan [PDF] that is available for public comment.
January 12, 2010 — A view of spilled oil next to a culvert in Helmet Creek, with the tanker that supplied the fuel in the background. Proposed restoration projects will benefit both salmon and the entire stream ecosystem. (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service/Lisa Stitler)
In the plan, we present our preferred restoration alternative, which includes a suite of projects to improve the overall quality of Helmet Creek. Restoration is targeted at pink salmon but also will benefit the entire stream corridor. The proposed work includes restoring access to the creek for fish, removing barrels and other debris, and increasing water flow by plugging a culvert system that is drawing water from the stream. Our goal is to perform this restoration in the summer of 2013.
You can comment on the restoration plan until April 30, 2013. Send comments to me at:
Ian Zelo
NOAA Oil Spill Coordinator
Assessment and Restoration Division
7600 Sand Point Way NE
Seattle, WA 98115
Phone: 206.526.4599
Please provide a subject line, indicating that your comments relate to restoration planning for the Adak 2010 oil spill. Any comments received will become part of the administrative record. Please be aware that your entire comment—including your personal identifying information—may be made publicly available.
Ian Zelo
Ian Zelo is an oil spill and injury assessment specialist for NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration. He has performed both response and damage assessment roles on spills across the country. His first case in Alaska was the Selendang Ayu grounding on Unalaska Island in 2004.
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.
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.
A train derailment in Paulsboro, N.J. in November 2012 released 23,000 gallons of toxic vinyl chloride gas. (NOAA)
NOAA has partnered with chemical industry experts from the Dow Chemical Company to release a significant update to a free software program used to prevent dangerous chemical incidents and help protect emergency workers responding to hazardous chemical spills.
The software, known as the Chemical Reactivity Worksheet, predicts potential hazards from mixing chemicals. This newest version of the program is the result of a two-year-long collaboration between NOAA chemical response specialists, technical experts at Dow, and partners at the Center for Chemical Process Safety.
“This is an innovative collaboration between industry and government scientists to produce a valuable tool that addresses reactive chemical hazards,” said Jim Farr, NOAA chemist and project coordinator. “We hope this effort paves the way for other projects that enhance our understanding of chemical hazards and leads to a safer work environment for those people in the chemical industry and those that respond to chemical incidents.”
“We’ve greatly appreciated the opportunity to partner with NOAA on this and see this as a win-win for everyone,” said Dave Gorman, Dow chemist and project leader. “This collaboration has allowed us to merge a number of best practices and tools used within Dow with the very powerful Chemical Reactivity Worksheet tool. The result is a much more powerful and versatile tool that we hope will become the gold standard within industry for determining chemical compatibility.”
The Chemical Reactivity Worksheet provides information about 5,200 chemicals, each assigned to one or more “reactive groups” of chemicals which may react in a characteristic and potentially hazardous way if they come in contact with certain substances. The user creates a virtual mixture of chemicals—which could include the chemicals involved in a hazardous incident or stored in a laboratory, warehouse, or transport vehicle. Then the program predicts the possible hazards, including fire or explosion, from mixing all possible pairs of those chemicals.
The Chemical Reactivity Worksheet shows the predicted hazards of mixing the chemicals in a mixture in an easy-to-use graphical interface. In this view, the reactivity predictions are color coded, and the cells on the chart can be clicked to find more information about specific predicted reactions. General hazard statements, predicted gas products, and literature documentation for the selected pair of chemicals are shown at the bottom of the chart.
This latest release of the software increases the number of reactive groups, allowing for more refined predictions of potential chemical reactions, and expands the description of reactive chemicals. The program now includes an alert for possible gases released from a chemical mixture, as well as information on the compatibility of common absorbents used in response to spills of hazardous chemicals.
In addition, managers of chemical facilities and university chemistry departments now can add chemicals unique to their facilities, enabling them to further customize their evaluations of potential hazards. Other improvements include enhanced ease of use and functionality for the user, refined reactivity predictions, and updated chemical data.
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. The team’s work was reviewed by other chemists in industry and at Argonne National Laboratory.
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:
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)
