Read more about the council’s concerns about extensions of the tank inspection intervals at the Valdez Marine Terminal, a coalition for citizen oversight of the pipeline, hear from the Coast Guard about dual escorts, and more.
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The council held a board meeting on May 3 and 4 at the Valdez Convention and Civic Center.
Signifigant agenda items included:
The Council, in conjunction with the Oil Spill Recovery Institute of Cordova and BP’s Crisis Management Unit have been working on the development of a promising new method of providing aerial observations during an oil spill. The surveillance technology uses a helium filled balloon carrying both infrared and conventional cameras tethered to a vessel. The spill balloon can be lofted 500 feet in the air and would supplement traditional aircraft over-flights during a response.
A demonstration of this system was conducted on April 25, 2011 in Valdez at the small boat harbor. An on water demonstration took place later that afternoon in Port Valdez.
See photos from the April 19 test in Cordova by the Oil Spill Recovery Institute: OSRI Balloon Test
A balloon-based oil spill surveillance system was purchased by the Prince William Sound Science Center in 2009 for the purpose of testing its applicability for oil spill surveillance. The original concept for the system was an output of a workshop titled “Hydrocarbon sensors for oil spill prevention and response,” jointly sponsored by the Oil Spill Recovery Institute (OSRI) and the Alliance for Coastal Technology.
The final report on this demonstration focuses on the system owned by the Prince William Sound Science Center with discussion about other systems as applicable. Some additional information on alternative systems is provided in the section on selection criteria. The final report also gives suggestions for further research and speaks to the sorts of refinements that will help make the system better for spill response work.
Report: OSRI Balloon Surveillance System Operations And Test Results
See also: Hydrocarbon Sensors for Oil Spill Prevention and Response – Workshop Proceedings
Project Updates:
With the realities of our remote location, limited daylight hours through portions of the year, and goal of supplementing traditional aircraft overflights fully in mind, Council staff continue to monitor for developments in aerial surveillance technology.
The biodegradation process is fundamental to oil spill science and understanding the fate of oil, whether it is burned, dispersed, or dealt with mechanically. Biodegradation is the process through which oil is broken down into smaller compounds.
The fate of spilled oil and its byproducts is important to residents of our region who depend upon healthy marine resources for subsistence, food, and their living.
This Council project will help us understand whether chemically dispersed oil in Prince William Sound conditions would be biodegraded by indigenous microfauna or float around until it either resurfaces or is carried downstream.
Microfauna are essentially marine bacteria and other plankton that can eat and digest dispersed oil, breaking it down into simple molecules such as carbon dioxide, water, or methane.
The project will compare the biodegradation by microfauna of chemically dispersed Alaska North Slope crude oil with physically dispersed crude oil at ambient Prince William Sound conditions. The project also supports the council’s mission by providing the organization with the best scientific knowledge to help make informed, scientifically justified, decisions and comments on spill response policy and regulatory development.
The Council contracted with Michel Boufadel at the New Jersey Institute of Technology to conduct the experiments.
The project began in 2012 with three consecutive microcosm trials conducted to investigate biodegradation of dispersed oil in seawater in the lab. These trials were performed under conditions with low nutrients (background seawater) and high nutrients (additional nutrients added to the background seawater). These first tests were aimed at refining an oil dispersion technique prior to conducting a full experiment which will take place in Summer 2013.
Once the project is completed, the study results will be published in a peer review journal. The research can then be used as the basis for council comments on spill response policy and regulatory reviews by regulatory agencies and the Regional Response Team.
The Council’s Scientific Advisory Committee decided to commission a report in 2013 on the incomplete biodegradation of crude oil.
The committee had been studying the biodegradation of dispersed oil and its toxicity. The problem they found is that the biodegradation of oil is generally not a complete process. In theory, hydrocarbon should break down completely into carbon dioxide and water. Since it does not, many different compounds are formed as part of this incomplete process. In addition, standard methods analyzing biodegradation shows that as much as 75% of the product will be missed or that the breakdown would be overstated by as much as 4 times.
Another problem is that some of the biodegraded products are more toxic to aquatic life than the original compounds.
Improved analytical methods and recommendations for further work are included in the report.