Bering Straits Oil Spill Response Planning-Developing Geographic Response Strategies on Saint Lawrence Island Using Local and Indigenous Knowledge

2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 (1) ◽  
pp. 300212
Author(s):  
Mark Janes ◽  
Larry Iwamoto
2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 (1) ◽  
pp. 314-327
Author(s):  
Torild Ronnaug Nissen-Lie ◽  
Odd Willy Brude ◽  
Ole Oystein Aspholm ◽  
Peter Mark Taylor ◽  
David Davidson

ABSTRACT Following the April 2010 Gulf of Mexico (Macondo) oil spill and the 2009 Montara incident in Australia, the International Association of Oil and Gas Producers (OGP) formed the Global Industry Response Group. This Group identified nineteen oil spill response recommendations (OGP, 2011) that are being addressed via an Oil Spill Response Joint Industry Project (OSR-JIP) during 2012–2014. The OSR-JIP is managed by IPIECA on behalf of OGP, in recognition of IPIECA's long-standing experience with oil spill response matters. One of the nineteen recommendations concerned the development of an international guideline for offshore oil spill risk assessment and a method to better relate oil spill response resources to the risk level. Consequently, the OSR-JIP has published a guideline covering oil spill risk assessment and response planning for offshore installations. This paper describes the development and content of the guideline, including how the oil spill risk assessment process provides structured and relevant information to oil spill response planning for offshore operations. The process starts by defining the context of the assessment and describing the activity to be assessed. Thereafter it addresses a series of key questions:What can go wrong, leading to potential release of oil?What happens to the spilled oil?What are the impacts on key environmental - both ecological and socio-economic - receptors?What is the risk for environmental damage?How is the established risk utilised in oil spill response planning? The guideline draws on existing good practices in the determination of oil spill response resources. It promotes consideration, in tactical and logistical detail, of the preferred and viable response strategies to address scenarios covering the range of potential oil spills up to the most serious. The methodology to evaluate the potential spill scenarios utilizes a series of questions:What are the viable techniques/strategies to deliver response with greatest net environment benefit?What are the tactical measures required to implement the identified response strategies, considering technical, practical and safety factors?What Tiered resources are required to mount the tactical measures and achieve effective response? The paper summarizes the useful tools, key information and the necessary level of detail essential to perform an oil spill risk assessment for use in oil spill response planning.


2005 ◽  
Vol 2005 (1) ◽  
pp. 349-352
Author(s):  
Curt Clumpner

ABSTRACT When an oil spill impacts wildlife, the success of the wildlife response often depends on the quality of the preplanning and the responders ability to manage the factors that they can control. While factors such as season and weather, seasonal behavior and lifecycle stages of wildlife cannot be controlled, training of personal, equipment caches and pre-identifying facilities can have a huge influence on the success or failure or a wildlife response. Effective planning prior to the event is the only way to assure maximum preparedness and effective response. Wildlife response planning has become a key component of oil spill preparedness and response. With the recent publication of the IPIECA Report: A Guide to Oiled Wildlife Response Planning, planning for wildlife response has become an accepted and expected component of any oil spill contingency plan. Depending on available resources, appropriate response strategies may include any of a variety of tools: assessing impacts, use of dispersants, protective booming, hazing, wildlife rehabilitation and euthanasia. A good wildlife plan should address each of these issues and provide the information and guidance to necessary for responders to make appropriate and timely decisions that will maximize the success execution of the plan and the objectives of the specific response. This paper will outline the components necessary in a good wildlife plan within a framework that should be familiar to oil spill response planners. It will include a strategy section, an action section and a data section. As with every other phase of the response there are a variety of factors that affect the success of the wildlife plan. These include efficient management of all resources including the human resources, equipment and facilities. Quick initiation of the operations is critical to minimize the time between oiling of animals when they are collected and rehabilitation initiated. This paper will provide a framework for planners or responders with little or no wildlife experience to assist them in planning for the wildlife component within the overall response.


1985 ◽  
Vol 1985 (1) ◽  
pp. 639-639
Author(s):  
Thomas G. Ballou ◽  
Charles D. Getter ◽  
Bart J. Baca ◽  
Mohammad Al-Sarawi ◽  
Christine L. Vilardi

1995 ◽  
Vol 1995 (1) ◽  
pp. 767-773
Author(s):  
Hilary Hoagland-Grey ◽  
David Archer

ABSTRACT The opening of Eastern Europe to western companies has created a need for international cooperation between these companies and Eastern European governments. This new relationship presents a particular challenge for the oil industry as well as an opportunity for emerging governments to benefit from western companies’ experience. In 1993, Texaco Offshore Bulgaria submitted the first western oil spill response plan for the Bulgarian Black Sea. This paper presents a case study based on Dames & Moore's preparation of this plan. The plan was prepared in cooperation with the Bulgarian government, and included public discussions. It joined the country's existing response resources with Texaco's existing international response strategy. The result was a plan combining local knowledge and support and western capability and experience. This paper outlines the issues addressed in the plan. One critical point discussed below is that of protecting tourist beaches, which are an essential part of the Bulgarian economy. The paper concludes with a discussion of how cooperation between western industry and Eastern European government can result in successful oil spill response planning and help identify key factors for both attaining and maintaining preparedness in the face of the new challenges.


1991 ◽  
Vol 1991 (1) ◽  
pp. 673-676
Author(s):  
Edward Tennyson

ABSTRACT Recent large oil spills from tankers have reaffirmed the need for continuing technology assessment and research to improve oil-spill response capabilities. The Minerals Management Service (MMS) remains a lead agency in conducting these studies. This paper discusses MMS concerns, as reinforced by the acceleration of its research program in 1990. It briefly assesses the current state-of-the-art technology for major aspects of spill response, including remote sensing, open-ocean containment, recovery, in-situ burning, chemical treating agents, beach-line cleanup, and oil behavior. The paper reports on specific research projects that have begun to yield information that will improve detection and at-sea equipment performance. The first detection project, for which MMS has patent pending, involves the use of shipboard navigational radar to track slicks at relatively long range. The second project involves the use of conventional containment and cleanup in a downwind mode, which is contrary to the traditional procedures. The paper also discusses current research projects, including the development of an airborne, laser-assisted fluorosensor that can determine whether apparent slicks contain oil. Additional projects involve the development of improved strategies for responding to oil in broken-ice conditions, for gaining an improved understanding of the fate and behavior of spilled oil as it affects response strategies, and for reopening and operating the oil and hazardous materials simulated environmental test tank (OHMSETT) facility in Leonardo, New Jersey. Recent progress on the development of safe and environmentally acceptable strategies to burn spilled oil in-situ is also discussed. The OHMSETT facility is necessary for testing prospective improvements in chemical treating agents and to develop standard procedures for testing and evaluating response equipment.


1991 ◽  
Vol 1991 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-5
Author(s):  
O. Khalimonov ◽  
S. Nunuparov

ABSTRACT International and domestic experience in the response to major oil spills at sea confirms the vital necessity of a national contingency plan to guarantee effective utilization of national resources and those of assisting countries and organizations. Experience in responding to recent major oil spills underlines deficiencies connected with the shortage of technical means and also with ineffective organization of the response and cooperation of all parties involved. This results in unjustifiable delays in decision making and, finally, in catastrophic damages to the environment. The main principles of the U.S.S.R. national oil spill response plan, currently under consideration for approval, are as follows:involvement of a wide range of national forces and forces of the neighboring countries under preliminary agreed-upon schemes;strengthening and development of appropriate legal instruments to stipulate obligations of the parties involved in pollution response operations;development of a mechanism to reduce impediments to financial, technical, and related agreements required prior to commencement of operations (sources of finances, preliminary approval of the response technology by competent authorities, facilitation of custom procedures);unification of the structure of the U.S.S.R national contingency plan with a view to making it compatible with corresponding plans of neighboring countries following the prototype developed by the International Maritime Organization (IMO);cooperation in the establishment of the international monitoring system, data bank, and computerized exchange of information.


2003 ◽  
Vol 2003 (1) ◽  
pp. 371-376 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hélder O. Ferreira ◽  
Alexandre Cabrai ◽  
Álvaro Souza Junior

ABSTRACT The Brazilian oil and gas E&P sector has been experiencing important changes since the end of the state monopoly in 1998. These changes include a new regulatory environment which is still under construction, in particular the requirements for environmental protection. In this context, Resolution 293 of Brazilian National Environmental Council (CONAMA) was enacted regulating Facility Response Plans for oil spill incidents. These plans, which should be approved by the competent authority, include a vulnerability analysis that should discuss the probability of oil reaching certain areas as well as the environmental sensitivity of these areas. Oil spill modeling is an important tool to estimating the areas likely to be affected by an oil spill. Although oil spill modeling is also part of the environmental studies required in the environmental permitting process for oil E&P activities, there are not well defined criteria to compose the oil spill scenarios to be modeled. In order to demonstrate the impacts of different approaches in the results of oil spill modeling, a case study is presented related to an offshore drilling activity.


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