Recently, NOAA's Gulf of Mexico Disaster Response Center hosted the fifth and final OR&R Science of Oil Spills (SOS) workshop of 2011. The Mobile, Ala., workshop included training sessions on a wide range of oil spill response topics, as well as a field trip to nearby Dauphin Island.

Most of the more than 45 participants hailed from the Gulf of Mexico region, while others traveled from as far away as Alaska and Nigeria. Participants included representatives from the U.S. Coast Guard, state and federal agencies, and industry, as well as a Nigerian researcher investigating potential improvements to oil spill response in the Niger Delta region.

Through a mix of presentations and exercises, participants in the three and a half day course deepened their knowledge of a range of oil spill response topics, from environmental sensitivity mapping to spill trajectory prediction. This workshop activity fit well with the Disaster Response Center's objective to enhance preparedness and response in the Gulf of Mexico and highlighted the collective OR&R mission.

This most recent SOS workshop followed many other OR&R Emergency Response Division training events this year, including earlier SOS workshops in Seattle, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC; Shoreline Cleanup Assessment (SCAT) classes in various U.S. locations; short courses presented at the International Oil Spill Conference; and other training events. The next SOS workshop is scheduled for April 2012 in Seattle.