Term Paper on "Noaa Emergency Response to Oil Spills"

Term Paper 10 pages (3867 words) Sources: 1+

[EXCERPT] . . . .

NOAA stands for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, where their main responsibility is to clean up mess made by oil spills in the ocean. They cover the whole world where there are spills of oil, they were the one being called to help eliminate the oil in the water and maintain its cleanliness to prevent the oil from spreading and damaging the ocean and keeping animals especially marine animals. If there are spills in the ocean, NOAA uses different kinds of procedures and techniques so that it will prevent further spreading of oil. Aside from those procedures and techniques they use the help of machines to fasten their work. There is one program under NOAA that they call DARP, which stands for Damage Assessment and Restoration Program (DARP). This program will keep the employees of NOAA to study and be an expert in assessing and restoring natural resources that were caused by an oil spill or even any hazardous substances that can damage the coastal resources. This means that after the clean up of oil spill, DARP will still monitor the ocean affected by the spill and restore the natural resources. DARP has been created after the traumatic that happen with the Exxon Valdez oil spill, which is the biggest oil spill and damaged greatly the ocean. DARP works with different kinds of teams that have an expertise in preserving the resources based on the online source, http://www.darp.noaa.gov/about/:

DARP's multidisciplinary team of biologists, economists, attorneys, and policy analysts works with co-trustees to:

Assess and quantify injuries,

Recover damages from the responsible party through negotiation or litigation,

Develop and evaluate restoration alternatives, and Implement restoration projects.

DARP professionals can be found in coastal areas so that if there is an emergency they can quickly respond to the incidents and quickly assess damages and can restore it fast. They have an easy access to coastal areas where they can run and move to the water as fast as possible. Within DARP there are three offices based on the online source, http://www.darp.noaa.gov/about/:

The Damage Assessment Center (DAC) is responsible for assessing the impact to NOAA trust resources from releases of oil and hazardous materials to achieve the goal of restoration. DAC staff determines what resources have been injured and lost to the public, and identifies resources that should be restored. DAC is located within the National Ocean Service under the Office of Response and Restoration.

The Restoration Center (RC) is responsible for conducting and coordinating restoration planning and implementation, and monitoring restoration projects. The RC is located within the National Marine Fisheries Service under the Office of Habitat Conservation.

The Office of General Counsel for Natural Resources provides legal support for the Damage Assessment and Restoration Program. Located within the NOAA Office of General Counsel, these attorneys are responsible for all legal matters associated with NOAA's natural resource trusteeship.

What is an oil spill?

An oil spill is an escape, overflow or leakage of petroleum products in the ocean from a vessel or oil tanker of. But it is not just petroleum that overflows sometimes they are also hazardous to our coastal resources that spills. Based on the online source, http://www.darp.noaa.gov/:

The kind of oil spill we usually think about is the accidental or intentional release of petroleum products into the environment as result of human activity (drilling, manufacturing, storing, transporting, waste management). Examples would be things like well blowouts, pipeline breaks, ship collisions or groundings, overfilling of gas tanks and bilge pumping from ships, leaking underground storage tanks, and oil-contaminated water runoff from streets and parking lots during rain storms.

Apart from oil spills caused by human actions, oil also is released into the environment from natural oil seeps in the ocean bottom.

Oil spreads rapidly especially when it is light and the water is wavy because it helps the oils to move faster and spreads out easily. But then when the oil is heavy such as black oil, the spread of it is so slow because they are contained together and the fluidity is sticky. The condition of the water also matters with the spread of the oil and the temperature also. When the weather is cold the oil are somewhat frozen and solid so the spread of it is slow. In terms of weather, when it is windy and there is storm, we are expecting the oil to spread quick and fast, and what is hard to clean up is they are not contained in one area, some of them can be found in different areas and can be found also in the shoreline thus damaging the corals and the animals in the water.

History of oil spills.

Oil spills can happen anywhere in the world as long as there is an import or an export of oil through water there is a possibility of an oil spill. It happens under some unavoidable circumstances and in different kind of situations. There is what we call a hot spot where oil spill happens frequently according to Etkin (1997):

the Gulf of Mexico (267 spills)

the northeastern U.S. (140 spills)

the Mediterranean Sea (127 spills)

the Persian Gulf (108 spills)

the North Sea (75 spills)

Japan (60 spills)

the Baltic Sea (52 spills)

the United Kingdom and English Channel (49 spills)

Malaysia and Singapore (39 spills)

the west coast of France and north and west coasts of Spain (33 spills)

Korea (32 spills)

This can happen with mostly tankers but then it can also happen in any kind of sea vessel as long as they transport oil and it spilled. Tankers were most of the time being accounted because they cause too much damage and oil spill is bigger, some of small ship has not been accountable because the damage is just small. During the Persian Gulf War in 1991, a tanker spilled an oil and it greatly affected the gulf environment this causes a water pollution and it was the biggest spill that ever happened in the world. Here is some of the oil spill that happened in the United States based on the online source, http://www.darp.noaa.gov/:

Oil from natural seeps was in the water before the first spills from oil production. In the early 1500s, the Portuguese-born explorer Juan Cabrillo sailed into what is now Santa Barbara, California, and remarked on the oil he saw bubbling out from a natural seep. He reported that the Chumash Indians scooped and skimmed up the oil, which they used to waterproof their boats.

The first oil well in the U.S. was drilled in 1859 in an area of natural oil seeps along Oil Creek, near Titusville, Pennsylvania. It's possible -- although we don't know for sure -- that the first oil spills from oil production may have occurred when crude oil was first transported from this well.

The U.S. Fish Commission (NOAA's precursor) steamer Albatross reported a massive oil slick extending from L.A. south to northern San Diego County around 1889 or 1890. We don't know the source of this slick.

In the late 19-teens, hopane, a chemical "signal" of spilled oil, began appearing in the sediments of Puget Sound, Washington State, indicating that oil had been spilled into the Sound. Hopane's appearance peaked during WWII and has since been slowly declining.

After passage of federal legislation in 1925, the California Fish and Game Department began a major effort to reduce spills and leakages from coastal oil drilling operations in California, which at that time were common. In 1929, for example, a 600-barrel spill covered 9 miles of Ventura County Beach. By 1930, spills from ships were considered a greater menace than shoreline leakage.

The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill was the largest oil spill that happened in the history of United States. It happened on midnight of March 24, 1989 and it quickly spread throughout Alaska. It spreads for more than 3,000 square miles and it greatly affected one of the grandest beaches in Prince William Sound. The responses of different agencies were slow and during that time equipments and facilities were quite not sufficient to control the amount of spill coming from the Exxon Valdez and the location of the spill were quite secluded that is why they had a hard time going in the place. Everything were not prepared included experts were not enough to control those kind of spills, they were not expecting such huge spill that is why the result of controlling and preventing the spread was quite a failure. With this incident, they have learned a lot and the United States focused on the development and enhancement of the equipments as well as the people involved with the protection agency. Employees were trained to become an expert and studied deeply on controlling and cleanup of the oil spills. Here is some of the study on the improvements they made based on the online source, http://www.epa.gov/history/topics/valdez/04.htm:

Prevention is the first line of defense.

Preparedness must be strengthened.

Response capabilities must be enhanced to reduce environmental risk.

Some oil spills… READ MORE

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