Aug. 15, 2017 - How do you handle a polar bear covered in oil? That was just one aspect of the annual Mutual Aid Deployment exercise last month on Alaska’s North Slope oil field.

Staff members from our Emergency Response Division and the Assessment and Restoration Division as well as other NOAA offices participated in the three-day exercise. Each year government agencies, oil companies, and oil spill removal organizations in the region work together to respond to a simulated oil spill in Alaska.

The scenario for this year’s drill was the simulation of an oil pipeline leak in the Beaufort Sea and the rescue of an oiled polar bear. In the exercise, the pipeline that was leaking belonged to Hilcorp, Alaska LLC. It was the first year the oil company hosted the event.

In addition to our office, participants included:

• U.S. Coast Guard
• National Marine Fisheries Service
• Alaska Department of Fish and Game
• North Slope Borough
• U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
• Alaska Department of Natural Resources
• Alaska Clean Seas
• Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation
• Hilcorp, Alaska LLC

The exercise included field equipment deployment, an Incident Command Center, and remote operations in Anchorage. Emergency Response Division staff participated in the Incident Management Team at the command center established at Hilcorp’s Endicott Facility on the Beaufort Sea north of Prudhoe Bay.

Staff from the Assessment and Restoration Division led the Natural Resource Damage Assessment component of the drill, that included a tabletop exercise with representatives from the state and federal agencies, and staff from Hilcorp. One Damage Assessment liaison was at the Endicott facility and the rest of the team participated remotely from Anchorage. The drill provided an opportunity to practice how a natural resource damage assessment would work with response early in a spill situation.

NOAA provides scientific support to the Coast Guard during oil and chemical spills, and the tools we’ve developed are an extension of that support. During the exercise, our GNOME trajectory-forecasting tool kept participants updated on where the spilled oil could go.

Arctic ERMA^®, our online Environmental Response Management Application, was continuously being updated with information on where the oil was as well as the location all the responders and their equipment. Environmental Sensitivity Index maps, which identify vulnerable wildlife and habitat potentially at risk from the spill, were also displayed in ERMA.

So how do you handle an oiled polar bear?

Very carefully and with a close eye on a timer.

Part of the drill was to see if an oil-injured polar bear could be tranquilized, pulled from the water, cleaned and caged before waking up.

Standing in for a real polar bear was an industrial-sized drum, filled with sand, covered with white cloth, and sporting a molded-foam head. The idea was to put the bear in the ocean and have emergency responders rescue the bear.

The rescue went well although some miscommunication early in the day added an unexpected element of realism—the team setting the fake bear in the lagoon did not anchor it, and due to heavy seas and winds on drill day, the bear drifted out into open water. However, the polar bear response team performed expertly and the fake bear was successfully located and rescued within the time allotted.

You can read more about other simulated oil (and oranges and rubber ducks) spills in these articles:

• From Rubber Ducks to Dog Food, Spilling Everything But Oil
• Above, Under, and Through the Ice: Demonstrating Technologies for Oil Spill Response in the Arctic

Zachary Winters-Staszak, Catherine Berg, and Sarah Allan of the Office of Response and Restoration contributed to this article.

Here in Seward, Alaska, we have built a well-equipped facility with depth in space, resources, and personnel. But chances are oil spills will occur somewhere other than our home base.

We have partnered with oil spill response organizations to provide support in other key areas with a large industrial and civic presence. These and other fixed facilities have the advantage of being close to population centers, providing shelter, and meeting the needs of stranded animals and our staff.

However, Alaska is a bit on the large side and has thousands of miles of remote coastlines dotted with small communities. As trans-Arctic shipping increases, so does the risk of accidents potentially affecting these shores, and we cannot count on spills happening where our equipment is conveniently available.

In fact, we need to be prepared to be completely self-sufficient and independent of even the smallest communities so as not to over-tax their resources with our activities.

So how do we take our rehab center on the road? Or rather, how do we take it down the beach, since most of Alaska’s shore is not accessible by road? We need a deployable set of equipment to treat impacted animals that will also meet the needs of the staff required to care for them.

Something like a MASH unit, a mobile army surgical hospital, or perhaps a ‘Mobile Animal Stranding Hospital!’ The team at Alaska Sea Life Center had already come up with an easily shipped seal pool and a list of equipment needed to support the oiled, stranded animals at fixed facilities as part of our partnerships with oil spill response organizations.

Now we needed to focus on those additional items needed if we were required to provide our own electricity, water, shelter, and staff needs, all of which needed to be compact and deployable.

Ultimately, we settled on a tiny-house-meets-Transformers approach in which we fill specially designed shipping container units with the necessary supplies and equipment, ready to be deployed where needed. Once on site, they transform into a veterinary clinic, food storage and kitchen, animal housing—including a pool, totes, crates, and dry area—and staff area.

But how will we staff our responses? Initially, we plan to draw from our own staff, as many are both Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response certified and experienced with caring for marine mammals and are based right here in Alaska. We have also partnered with the Association of Zoos and Aquariums to train additional personnel experienced with the unique challenges of caring for marine mammals. Their home institutions have agreed to allow trained staff to deploy in support of events, but their staff are also trained to assist with events in their local area.

In combination, these efforts keep us ready, keep Alaska ready, and keep zoos and aquaria across the country ready.

To read more about the Association of Zoos and Aquariums program to train members for wildlife spill response:

• Zoos and Aquariums Training for Oil Spill Emergency Response

Read more stories in our series on the effects of pollutants on wildlife:

• How to Locate Wildlife Threatened During Oil Spills 
• A Legacy of Industry and Toxins in Northern New Jersey: Striped Bass and Blue Crab
• How Marine Debris is Impacting Marine Animals

 

Carrie Goertz is the staff veterinarian at the Alaska SeaLife Center overseeing the program of veterinary care for collection, research, and stranded animals. Special interests include helping the center and other zoological facilities being prepared to respond to disasters as well as how information about animals in zoological facilities and free ranging wildlife can help provide the best care for both groups. Opened in 1998, the Alaska SeaLife Center is a private, non-profit research institution and public aquarium. ASLC generates and shares scientific knowledge to promote understanding and stewardship of Alaska’s marine ecosystems, and is an accredited member of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. To learn more, visit www.alaskasealife.org.

In May, there were two incidents of dead gray whales in Washington state, one floating offshore near Long Beach, and another washed ashore in Bellingham Bay. In both cases, we were asked for trajectories. In the case of a whale found floating at sea, we use our GNOME trajectory modeling software to map the possible drift route of the carcass.

When a whale washes ashore, one of the things that officials need to know is how far they have to tow the carcass back out to sea to ensure it will not wash back to shore.

Our Incident News website has information on oil spills and other incidents where we provided scientific support.

Bellingham Gray Whale Carcass

Gray Whale Carcass: Seaview Approach, Washington

Lower Caribbean Oil Spill

Mystery Sheen, Keweenaw Waterway, Michigan

Sunken Tug, Eugene Island Block, Offshore, Louisiana

GB 545 Mystery Sheen

Delta Flight 159 Fuel Dump

Mystery Sheen, MC-21

Ethylene Glycol Drums, Sea Rim State Park

Tug Adrift off Washington Coast

Tug Mr. Landon Aground

PVS Chemicals Sulfuric Acid Release

Crowley Barge DBL 165-1 Grounding

Marathon Petroleum Storage Tank H2S release

Navy OCEANA Jet Fuel Spill

U.S. Steel Ferrous Chloride Release

Feb. 3, 2017 -- NOAA's Office of Response and Restoration (OR&R), a leader in providing scientific information in response to marine pollution, has scheduled a summer Science of Oil Spills (SOS) class in Seattle, Washington, June 19-23, 2017. OR&R will accept applications for the Seattle class until Friday, April 7. We will notify applicants regarding their application status no later than Friday, April 14, via email. 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. SOS training covers:

• 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, 170 KB]. Please understand that classes are not filled on a first-come, first-served basis. We try to diversify the participant composition to ensure a variety of perspectives and experiences, to enrich the workshop for the benefit of all participants. Classes are generally limited to 40 participants. For more information, and to learn how to apply for the class, visit the SOS Classes page.

Point source pollution is defined as coming from a single point, such as a factory or sewage treatment plant. Here are a few examples of point source pollution OR&R worked on. Deepwater Horizonoil spill, Gulf of Mexico — Releasing about 134 million gallons of oil the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill is the largest point source of oil pollution in United States history. Mosaic Acidic Water Release, Florida — On Sept. 5, 2004, acidic water was released during Hurricane Frances from Mosaic Fertilizer, LLC’s storage containment system. The spill polluted nearly 10 acres of seagrass beds and more than 135 acres of wetland habitats, including almost 80 acres of mangroves. Montrose Hazardous Releases, California — From the late 1940s to the early 1970s, millions of pounds of DDT and polychlorinated biphenyl were discharged into ocean waters off the southern California coast. Most of the DDT originated from the Montrose Chemical Corporation manufacturing plant located in Torrance, California. In 2001, NOAA and other federal and state agencies reached a settlement with the polluters, establishing the Montrose Settlements Restoration Program (MSRP).

Runoff from urban and suburban areas is a major origin of non-point source pollution. Discarded trash can become a component of non-point source pollution runoff. For the last 10 years, NOAA’s Marine Debris Program has been tackling non-point pollution of marine debris by leading research, prevention, and removal projects. Here are a few examples of non-point source pollution the Marine Debris Program worked on. Tijuana River, California — The large amounts of trash and larger debris that wash downstream threaten and degrade the Tijuana River Valley’s valuable ecological, cultural, recreational, and economic resources. A grant from NOAA funds work that includes the removal and disposal of debris that accumulates behind large trash booms designed to block debris from flowing into the ocean. Shuyak Island, Alaska — With the support of a Marine Debris Program grant, the Island Trails Network (ITN) is leading an innovative two-year effort to remove marine debris from a remote island in Alaska. Working with 100 volunteers and trained crew, ITN created a kayak-based cleanup operation to remove about 40,000 pounds of marine debris from Shuyak Island. The island — a remote location with critical habitat for numerous species of birds, fish, and marine mammals — accumulates large amounts of marine debris because of ocean currents and winds. Joe Inslee is a policy/outreach analyst with NOAA’s Assessment and Restoration Division. His work helps raise the visibility of the critical scientific work his office conducts after a hazardous release.

Nov. 10, 2016 -- The winter of 1976-77 was a bad time for oil spills in the United States. I was still in middle school, but I remember doing a science report on oil spills. In a short time period there were multiple major oil spills, including these:

• The tanker Argo Merchant ran aground on Dec. 15, 1976 and later broke apart off Nantucket Island, Massachusetts, spilling 7.6 million gallons of heavy fuel oil.
• The tanker Sansinena exploded in Los Angeles Harbor, California, on Dec. 17, 1976, spilling 1.3 million gallons of heavy oil. Nine crew were killed and 46 people were injured.
• Christmas Eve 1976 was not all quiet, when the tanker Oswego Peace spilled 5,000 gallons of bunker fuel into New London Harbor, Connecticut.
• The tanker Olympic Games ran aground in the Delaware River, south of Philadelphia Pennsylvania, on Dec. 27, 1976, spilling 145,000 gallons of crude.

The rash of incidents continued into the New Year.

• On Jan. 4, 1977, the tanker Universe Leader, loaded with 21 million gallons, ran aground in the Delaware River, New Jersey. It was refloated without a spill.
• Also on Jan. 4, 1977, the tanker Grand Zenith, loaded with 8 million gallons of oil, was lost with all hands off the coast of New England. Only a few pieces of debris and an oil slick were found.
• On Jan. 10, 1977, the tanker Chester A. Poling broke in half and sank off Gloucester, Massachusetts. It had just discharged its cargo and was only carrying ballast, but still spilled 14,000 gallons of diesel. One crew member was killed.

The large number of tanker accidents and loss of life alarmed the public and Congress. Hearings were quickly held in the District of Columbia in January, 1977. The hearing transcripts provide an insight into shipping and pollution concerns of the time. These concerns included the risk of spills from the still-under-construction Trans-Alaska Pipeline System that would open in a few months. The hearings concluded, but the rash of spills that winter did not.

• On Jan. 17, 1977, the tanker Irene’s Challenger, loaded with 9.6 million gallons of crude oil, broke apart and sank near Midway Island in North Pacific Ocean. Three crew were lost.
• On Feb. 2, 1977, the tank barge Ethel H spilled 480,000 gallons of crude oil into New York Harbor.
• On Feb. 26, 1977, the tanker Hawaiian Patriot broke apart and sank off Hawaii, spilling 31 million gallons of crude oil. All but one of the crew were rescued. This little known incident is still considered the largest tanker spill in United States waters.

This winter marks the 40th anniversary of NOAA’s spill response program — a program that began, not surprisingly, in the wake of all of these incidents. In December, the Office of Response and Restoration (OR&R) will post a series of stories on NOAA’s leading role in oil spill response.
 

Doug Helton is the Regional Operations Supervisor for the West Coast, Alaska, Hawaii, and Great Lakes and also serves as the Incident Operations Coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Emergency Response Division. The Division provides scientific and technical support to the Coast Guard during oil and chemical spill responses. The Division is based in Seattle, WA, but manages NOAA response efforts nationally.

Walking on the beach is one of life’s great pleasures. Walking on the beach and ending up with sticky black balls attached to your feet is not so pleasurable. Tarballs, those sticky black globs, are often leftover from an oil spill. When crude oil (or a heavier refined product) hits the ocean’s surface, it undergoes physical change. The change process is called “weathering.” As the wind and waves stretch and tear the oil patches into smaller pieces, tarballs are formed. Tarballs can be as flat and large as pancakes, or as small as a dime.

How long do tarballs remain sticky? Are tarballs hazardous to your health? How are tarballs removed from affected beaches? Those and other questions, including how to report new sightings of tarballs, can be found on our Tarballs page.

October 3, 2016 -- NOAA's Office of Response and Restoration (OR&R), a leader in providing scientific information in response to marine pollution, has scheduled two more Science of Oil Spills (SOS) classes:

• Charleston, South Carolina, the week of February 13, 2017
• Mobile, Alabama the week of March 27, 2017

OR&R will accept applications for these classes as follows:

• The application period for the Charleston class will run through Monday, November 28, 2016. We will email applicants regarding their application status no later than Friday, December 9.
• The application period for the Mobile class will run through Friday, January 20, 2017. We will email applicants regarding their application status no later than Friday, February 3, 2017.

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. The 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, 170 KB]. Please understand that classes are not filled on a first-come, first-served basis. We try to diversify the participant composition to ensure a variety of perspectives and experiences, to enrich the workshop for the benefit of all participants. Classes are generally limited to 40 participants. For more information, and to learn how to apply for the class, visit the SOS Classes page.

In the United States, organizations and businesses that produce or store specific hazardous chemicals above certain amounts are required to disclose information to local fire departments, local emergency planning committees, and state or tribal emergency response commissions to help those groups plan for and respond to chemical emergencies.

This process is mandated by the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA). Under EPCRA, those chemical sites must complete an annual “Tier II form,” where they share information about the chemicals on site (such as types, quantities, and locations), as well as other important details like contact information for their site’s emergency coordinator.

As a result of fatal chemical accidents in recent years, Executive Order (EO) 13650 (Improving Chemical Facility Safety and Security) was implemented in August 2013. It called for improving operational coordination between federal, state, local, and tribal organizations; enhancing information collection and sharing; and modernizing regulations, policy, and standards.

Many of the items in the executive order are specifically related to facilitating the exchange of information to help emergency responders and planners. Among the changes that EO 13650 proposes is the creation of a national Tier II data standard so that information can be shared between systems (e.g., between neighboring states using different Tier II filing systems) to improve the exchange of Tier II information.

NOAA and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have recently developed and released version 1.0.0 of the national Tier II data standard, which will allow Tier II information to be shared by all programs that follow the standard. We chose a common platform, XML, for the new standard to make adoption of the standard as easy as possible.

Top Tier Software

NOAA and EPA also develop a Tier II management program called Tier2 Submit™, which allows chemical sites to complete Tier II forms electronically. The chemical sites can then submit those electronic Tier II submission files, according to the requirements of their state. About half of the states and territories in the U.S. use the Tier2 Submit program, which is available for download from the EPA website. Tier2 Submit files can also be imported directly into the CAMEOfm database program for emergency response and planning purposes.

When the new version of Tier2 Submit is released this fall, it will be able to import and export data in an XML format that adheres to the new national Tier II data standard. (Tier2 Submit will also continue to support import from the older file formats in this upcoming release.) While this is a significant change to the data file structure and an important improvement for exchanging data between programs, it will have minimal impact on the user experience and they will interact with Tier2 Submit much as they have in previous years. (The fall release of CAMEOfm will also allow Tier II information to be imported via the new XML data standard, but the next CAMEOfm will not include any additional import or export XML support beyond that.)

A Suite of Updates for Safety

Besides the Tier II data standard, the joint NOAA-EPA CAMEO® team has implemented several other changes, prompted by the executive order, to the suite of chemical response and planning software. We have added the Department of Homeland Security’s Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) information in CAMEO Chemicals; added Spanish and French response guides from the 2016 Emergency Response Guidebook in CAMEO Chemicals; included the Navy’s RAILCAR model in ALOHA® as an alternative tank source strength model, and redesigned the MARPLOT® mapping program to allow users to incorporate geospatial data from many sources (and in many different file formats).

In addition, the CAMEO team is currently developing several apps for mobile phones and tablets.

The CAMEO software products have been valuable hazardous materials response and planning tools since the first products were introduced in 1986. The CAMEO suite consists of four core programs—ALOHA (models hazardous gas clouds), CAMEO Chemicals (a chemical database), CAMEOfm (a chemical emergency data management application), and MARPLOT (a mapping program)—as well as several related programs, such as Tier2 Submit. These applications can be used together or separately, but when used together, the programs interact seamlessly and information can be linked easily between them.

As a result of NOAA and EPA’s work to address Executive Order 13650 recommendations, emergency responders have improved access to information and an enhanced ability to share information with other organizations for chemical facility safety and security—improving safety for everyone when a disaster occurs.

Sept. 27, 2016 - Where the Duwamish River meets Puget Sound in Washington state this shift of water flow happens daily. The Duwamish pours into the salty waters of Puget Sound, making it Seattle’s downtown estuary. The powerful tides that fill and drain the sound push and pull on the Duwamish causing a shift in directions at the river's estuary. This estuary does not look like the estuaries from high school text books. It no longer has a wide delta where the freshwater river fans out to meet the salty ocean. Instead, it looks like a channelized waterway. Almost all of the Duwamish estuarine wetlands and mudflats have been lost to dredging or filling for industrial purposes. Restoring the Duwamish‘s estuary is a massive challenge—requiring government agencies, industry, and the public to work together. I am happy to report a significant step forward in this collaboration. NOAA recently produced key answers to some tough questions, based on lessons we learned as we worked on this restoration effort: What works the best to restore this highly urban and developed river and estuary? What are some of the key obstacles we encountered?

• Dealing with costs and challenges of existing contamination
• Preventing erosion of new restoration
• Keeping newly-planted vegetation alive—geese and other wildlife love to eat newly planted restoration sites

• Plan for uncertainty: the most common issue for restoration in urban areas is discovering unexpected challenges, such as sediment contamination during construction.
• Allow for ongoing maintenance: Restoration isn’t over just because a project is complete. To ensure the long-term success of restoration efforts, continued stewardship of the site is necessary and should be included in project planning.
• Get the biggest bang for your buck: When companies conduct cleanups of their sites, it is most cost effective to conduct restoration at the same time. River with grid strung above it.

The challenges and recommendations are only a snapshot of what can be found in the NOAA report, Habitat Restoration in an Urban Waterway: Lessons Learned from the Lower Duwamish River. While the Duwamish estuary may look nothing like it did historically, it is important to always be reminded that it is still full of life. From salmon to kayakers to industry, the estuary serves a key role in the Seattle community. Learn more about what we are doing to restore the Duwamish River. See video: A River Reborn: Restoring Salmon Habitat along the Duwamish River.