MARINE OIL SPILL RESPONSE OPTIONS: THE MANUAL

Abstract The low oil recovery rates reported during Macondo (3–5% of the released oil) have caused discussions regarding the efficiency of mechanical recovery compared to other oil spill response options. These low recovery rates have unfortunately been used as reference recovery rates in several later modelling studies and oil spill response analysis. Multiple factors could explain these low rates, such as operational priorities, where dispersants and/or in situ burning are given priority before mechanical recovery; extended safety zones; availability of adequate equipment and storage capacity of collected oil; the number of units available; the level of training and the available remote sensing support to guide operations. This study uses the OSCAR oil spill model to simulate a deep-water oil release to evaluate the effect of different response options both separately and in combination. The evaluated response options are subsea dispersant injection, mechanical recovery, and a combination of these. As expected, Subsea Dispersant Injection (SSDI) was highly effective and resulted in a significant reduction in residual surface oil (8% of released oil volume, versus 28% for the non-response option, NR). However, using large offshore oil recovery systems also reduced residual surface oil with a similar amount (9% of released oil volume). These results deviate significantly from the efficiency numbers reported after the Macondo incident and from later modelling studies scaled after the Macondo recovery rates. The increased efficiency of mechanical reported in this study is mainly due to inclusion of updated descriptions of response capabilities, reduced exclusion zone, a more realistic representation of surface oil distribution and modelling of response units' interactions with oil, (efficient oil recovery only on thick parts of the oil slick). The response capabilities and efficiency numbers for the different response options used in this study are based on equipment specifications from multiple response providers and authorities (Norwegian Clean Seas organisation (NOFO), Oil Spill Response (OSRL), Norwegian Coastal Administration (NCA), US Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) and others). These capabilities are justified by well-established contingency plans, offshore exercises and annual equipment performance testing with oil.

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SPILL IMPACT MITIGATION ASSESSMENT FRAMEWORK FOR OIL SPILL RESPONSE PLANNING IN THE ARCTIC ENVIRONMENT

International Oil Spill Conference Proceedings ◽

10.7901/2169-3358-2017.1.2017-351 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 2017 (1) ◽

pp. 2017-351 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Hilary Robinson ◽

William Gardiner ◽

Richard J. Wenning ◽

Mary Ann Rempel-Hester

Keyword(s):

Oil Spill ◽

Oil And Gas ◽

Environmental Benefits ◽

The Arctic ◽

Arctic Ecosystems ◽

Oil And Gas Development ◽

Response Planning ◽

Wide Range ◽

Oil Spill Response ◽

Different Response

ABSTRACT #2017-351 When there is risk for oil release into the marine environment, the priority for planners and responders is to protect human health and to minimize environmental impacts. The selection of appropriate response option(s) depends upon a wide range of information including data on the fate and behavior of oil and treated oil, the habitats and organisms that are potentially exposed, and the potential for effects and recovery following exposure. Spill Impact Management Assessment (SIMA; a refinement of Net Environmental Benefits Analysis, or NEBA, in the context of oil spill response) and similar comparative risk assessment (CRA) approaches provide responders a systematic method to compare and contrast the relative environmental benefits and consequences of different response alternatives. Government and industry stakeholders have used this approach increasingly in temperate and subtropical regions to establish environmental protection priorities and identify response strategies during planning that minimize impacts and maximize the potential for environmental recovery. Historically, the ability to conduct CRA-type assessments in the Arctic has been limited by insufficient information relevant to oil-spill response decision making. However, with an increased interest in shipping and oil and gas development in the Arctic, a sufficiently robust scientific and ecological information base is emerging in the Arctic that can support meaningful SIMA. Based on a summary of over 3,000 literature references on Arctic ecosystems and the fate and effects of oil and treated oil in the Arctic, we identify key input parameters supporting a SIMA evaluation of oil spill response in the Arctic and introduce a web portal developed to facilitate access to the literature and key considerations supporting SIMA.

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STATISTICAL ANALYSIS OF OIL SPILL RESPONSE OPTIONS: A NOAA-U.S. NAVY JOINT PROJECT

International Oil Spill Conference Proceedings ◽

10.7901/2169-3358-2001-2-883 ◽

2001 ◽

Vol 2001 (2) ◽

pp. 883-890 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Christopher H. Barker ◽

William P. Healy

Keyword(s):

Oil Spill ◽

Trajectory Analysis ◽

Oil Spills ◽

Current Version ◽

Continue Development ◽

Joint Project ◽

Response Options ◽

Oil Spill Response ◽

Different Response ◽

Impact Events

ABSTRACT The U.S. Navy is in the process of re-evaluating its oil spill response preparedness. As part of that effort, the Navy and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have teamed up to continue development of a tool designed to help planners assess their response effectiveness: the Trajectory Analysis Planner (TAP). TAP is an interface to a database of thousands of modeled oil spill trajectories, an ensemble of trajectories that represent the population of all possible spills. The TAP interface helps response planners understand characteristics of the possible oil spills in a given region. With this understanding, they can not only plan for one or a few possible high-impact events, but can determine the best overall plan for many events, across a large spectrum of probabilities and levels of impact. This paper is the result of the joint NOAA-Navy project to extend the capabilities of TAP. The capabilities and interface of the current version of the program (TAP II) are presented, along with some of its limitations. The need and direction of the development of a new version (TAP III) that will address some of these limitations is discussed. This future approach will allow planners to assess how different response options are likely to influence the ultimate impact of an oil spill in a region.

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Responding to Oil Spills in Louisiana's Coastal Floating Marshes: Ecology, Oil Impact, and Response Alternatives

International Oil Spill Conference Proceedings ◽

10.7901/2169-3358-2003-1-625 ◽

2003 ◽

Vol 2003 (1) ◽

pp. 625-629

Author(s):

Charlie Henry ◽

Charles E. Sasser ◽

Guerry O. Holm ◽

Kevin Lynn ◽

John Brolin ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Oil Spill ◽

Oil Spills ◽

Habitat Type ◽

Open Water ◽

Lessons Learned ◽

Response Options ◽

Oil Spill Response ◽

Floating Marsh ◽

Long Term Impact ◽

Spilled Oil

ABSTRACT Freshwater marshes cover 4000 square kilometers of the Louisiana coastal zone and are the most abundant marsh habitat type. Many of these marshes actually float as organic mats on underlying water. Some estimates suggest as much as 70% of Louisiana's coastal freshwater marsh are of the floating variety. The slow flow of water characteristic of these environments generally transports very little sediment. As a result, the marsh substrate is composed of primarily live and dead organic matter (peat formation) rather than mineral sediments. Since floating marshes are structurally different than intertidal marsh habitats, many traditional oil spill response options are ineffective or inappropriate. Access to the marsh is often limited since there is no open water ingress and the marsh structure cannot support the weight of equipment. Oil spill response options are further complicated when the source of the oil is a pipeline leak located below the floating marsh mat; spilled oil is free to travel at the interface of the underlying water and mat. Protection booming is impossible. Oil impacts often result in the death of all the living plants that are integral to the formation and sustainability of the habitat. This paper reports on two oil spills in a floating marsh near Paradis, Louisiana that occurred eight years apart. Both spills were spatially close to each other, which provided an excellent comparison for assessing potential long-term impact from oil spills in floating marshes. During both oil spill responses, unique response techniques were developed to recover spilled oil and enhance marsh recovery. An effective technique was to rake away and remove the dead oil-contaminated surface plant debris from the site and employ sorbent recovery. Lessons learned from these responses were used to develop mitigation guidance for future responses.

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SPILL IMPACT MITIGATION ASSESSMENT FRAMEWORK FOR OIL SPILL RESPONSE PLANNING IN THE ARCTIC ENVIRONMENT

International Oil Spill Conference Proceedings ◽

10.7901/2169-3358-2017.1.1325 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 2017 (1) ◽

pp. 1325-1344 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Hilary Robinson ◽

William Gardiner ◽

Richard J. Wenning ◽

Mary Ann Rempel-Hester

Keyword(s):

Oil Spill ◽

Oil And Gas ◽

Environmental Benefits ◽

The Arctic ◽

Arctic Ecosystems ◽

Oil And Gas Development ◽

Response Planning ◽

Wide Range ◽

Oil Spill Response ◽

Different Response

ABSTRACT #2017-351 When there is risk for oil release into the marine environment, the priority for planners and responders is to protect human health and to minimize environmental impacts. The selection of appropriate response option(s) depends upon a wide range of information including data on the fate and behavior of oil and treated oil, the habitats and organisms that are potentially exposed, and the potential for effects and recovery following exposure. Spill Impact Management Assessment (SIMA; a refinement of Net Environmental Benefits Analysis, or NEBA, in the context of oil spill response) and similar comparative risk assessment (CRA) approaches provide responders a systematic method to compare and contrast the relative environmental benefits and consequences of different response alternatives. Government and industry stakeholders have used this approach increasingly in temperate and subtropical regions to establish environmental protection priorities and identify response strategies during planning that minimize impacts and maximize the potential for environmental recovery. Historically, the ability to conduct CRA-type assessments in the Arctic has been limited by insufficient information relevant to oil-spill response decision making. However, with an increased interest in shipping and oil and gas development in the Arctic, a sufficiently robust scientific and ecological information base is emerging in the Arctic that can support meaningful SIMA. Based on a summary of over 3,000 literature references on Arctic ecosystems and the fate and effects of oil and treated oil in the Arctic, we identify key input parameters supporting a SIMA evaluation of oil spill response in the Arctic and introduce a web portal developed to facilitate access to the literature and key considerations supporting SIMA.

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UNIQUE DISPOSAL TECHNIQUES FOR ARCTIC OIL SPILL RESPONSE

International Oil Spill Conference Proceedings ◽

10.7901/2169-3358-1985-1-395 ◽

1985 ◽

Vol 1985 (1) ◽

pp. 395-398 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

James J. Swiss ◽

Donald J. Smrke ◽

William M. Pistruzak

Keyword(s):

Oil Spill ◽

Oil Spills ◽

Open Water ◽

The Arctic ◽

Air Cooling ◽

Wide Range ◽

Oil Spill Response ◽

One Step ◽

Remote Sites ◽

Forced Air

ABSTRACT Disposing of oil and oiled debris from Arctic oil spills presents problems not encountered in temperate regions. The remoteness of potential spill sites, the wide range of environmental conditions, the lack of support facilities like roads and dump sites, and the presence of permafrost make it impossible to use many standard disposal techniques used in the south. To solve this problem, Dome Petroleum Limited, has developed a number of unique techniques for disposing of oil and oiled debris in Arctic spill responses. These techniques include (1) a method for using air-deployable igniters to burn pooled oil, (2) an air-transportable burner that can be flown to remote sites to burn recovered liquid oil with water contents up to 80 percent, (3) a helicopter-transportable incinerator for burning oil-contaminated debris at remote sites, in which forced air cooling replaces refractory material as fire box protection, and (4) a fireproof boom, for offshore open water, that can collect and burn oil in one step. All of these techniques were developed to address specific disposal problems in the Arctic. They now form part of the industry's Beaufort Sea oil spill response arsenal.

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The Use of Dispersants in Marine Oil Spill Response

International Oil Spill Conference Proceedings ◽

10.7901/2169-3358-2021.1.689431 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 2021 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Helen K. White ◽

Stacee Karras

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Oil Spill ◽

Oil Spills ◽

Biological Effects ◽

Deep Ocean ◽

Careful Consideration ◽

Alternative Response ◽

Response Options ◽

Marine Oil ◽

Oil Spill Response

ABSTRACT Each marine oil spill presents unique circumstances and challenges that require careful consideration of which response options are most appropriate for mitigating impacts to local communities and the environment, which may include the use of dispersants. Dispersants are chemical countermeasures that reduce the amount of floating oil by promoting the formation of small droplets that remain or become entrained in the water column, where they are subjected to greater dissolution and dilution. During the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, an unprecedented volume of dispersants was used at the surface and in the deep ocean. The spill stimulated interest and funding for research on oil spill science, especially regarding dispersant use. Building on two previous reports and using this new information, a committee of experts convened by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) conducted a review and evaluation of the science on dispersant use. The committee's review focused on various aspects of dispersant use in offshore marine oil spills, including dispersant and oil fate and transport, human health considerations, biological effects, decision making, and alternative response options, among others. The findings and recommendations of the committee were published in the recent report, The Use of Dispersants in Marine Oil Spill Response (available for free download at https://www.nap.edu/catalog/25161/the-use-of-dispersants-in-marine-oil-spill-response). The presentation summarizes the committee's findings and recommendations within the context of oil spill response science and technology. A key area of consideration is how they relate to and support a robust decision making process in the event dispersants are considered for use in future spills.

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A Tool For Comparing Relative Risks to Ecological Components Associated With Different Oil Spill Response Options

International Oil Spill Conference Proceedings ◽

10.7901/2169-3358-2021.1.689135 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 2021 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Michael Bock ◽

Hilary Robinson ◽

Richard Wenning ◽

Deborah French-McCay ◽

Jill Rowe ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Oil Spill ◽

Application Framework ◽

Analysis Tool ◽

Web Based ◽

Response Options ◽

Relative Risks ◽

Collaborative Tool ◽

Comparative Risk ◽

Oil Spill Response ◽

Different Response

ABSTRACT Subsea dispersant injection (SSDI) applied to a deepwater blowout has been shown to be a highly efficient oil spill response (OSR) tool that, under appropriate conditions, can substantially lessen and delay oil surfacing as well as reduce the persistence of surface oil slicks. Bock et al. (2018) explored the relative ecological and societal risks associated with integration of SSDI into OSR strategies in the northern Gulf of Mexico using a comparative risk assessment (CRA) desktop analysis tool. The CRA analysis tool was developed with regulatory and stakeholder engagement and communication in mind; the user interface and emphasis on visualization of the assessment results were intended to facilitate rapid examination of the consequences of different spill scenarios in the presence and absence of SSDI and other OSR technologies. Using the CRA tool, decision makers are now better able to predict the nature and extent of the likely consequences to shoreline and aquatic valued ecological components (VECs) and environmental compartments (ECs), and examine the relative consequences of deploying different response technologies. The CRA tool has been substantially improved and has been redesigned from an Excel spreadsheet into a web-based application with enhanced interactive data visualizations and collaboration tools. The new web-based CRA tool is based on the Shiny application framework, an R based open source system for building interactive web-based applications. The updated CRA tool (https://nert.shinyapps.io/CRA_viewer/) now includes improved visualizations of the oil spill modeling results, depictions of the spatial footprint of different ECs, and the interactive exploration of the CRA results and intermediate calculations. Stakeholders are able to drill down into the components of the analysis and more easily explore the parameters that drive CRA scores, as well as explore alternative scoring options. The tool has also been modified to facilitate updating the CRA tool for new oil spill scenarios and OSR options. This web-based interactive CRA tool greatly enhances the usability of CRA as a collaborative tool for evaluating OSR options during planning and can also be used to inform the evaluation of response options during planning, training, and during an incident.

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