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# Arctic Technology Evaluation

## Making Waves: Episode 127

## Preparing for the Future

From left: (1) U.S. Coast Guard Cutter *Healy* (stock image courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard); (2) Zachary Winters-Staszak (left), NOAA spatial data specialist, and U.S. Coast Guard deck crew prepare to launch an Aerostat balloon from the USCG Cutter *Healy* in Nome, Alaska, on Aug. 12, 2014; (3) Zachary Winters-Staszak and Mark Rogers from the NOAA Unmanned Aircraft Systems Program view live Aerostat balloon data on a laptop aboard the *Healy* on Aug. 12, 2014. Patrick McCardell from the Aerostat team, who is directing the camera on the balloon, looks on. 

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***How would we respond to an oil spill in the Arctic?***

### Transcript

This is Making Waves from NOAA’s National Ocean Service. I’m  Troy Kitch.

What comes to mind when you  think about the Arctic Ocean? Sea ice, polar bears, harsh wind, frigid waters.  It’s a cold place. We all know that. But here’s the thing ... it’s getting warmer  up there. Every summer, the extent of the sea ice in the Arctic is shrinking.  And as the sea ice shrinks, here’s what we’re likely to see: more shipping,  more oil exploration, more tourism, and more fishing. And all of this activity  means that in the future, some day, we’ll probably going have to deal with an  oil spill in this remote region. So how do we prepare for that? 

The Coast Guard cutter *Healy*,  a 420-foot-long icebreaker, is now heading north in answer to this question.  The mission: an annual exercise called Arctic Shield led by the U.S. Coast  Guard’s Research and Development Center. Onboard the *Healy*, scientists are  gearing up to deal with a simulated oil spill in the icy Arctic.

To tell us all about Arctic  Shield and NOAA’s role in this expedition, I called Zachary Winters-Staszak, a  spatial data specialist on the mission from the National Ocean Service’s  Response and Restoration office. We caught up with him just before the _*Healy*_  departed Seward, Alaska.

So Zach, tell us a little bit  about Arctic Shield.

[Zachary Winters-Staszak]  “Arctic Shield 2014 is a technology demonstration focused on oil spill  response. We’ll be onboard the U.S. Coast Guard cutter *Healy* for about three  weeks. There are 50 scientists and 80 crew aboard the ship and we’re going to  steam from Seward, which is where we’re docked right now, to the ice edge in  the Arctic Ocean, hopefully somewhere 75 degrees north in latitude.”

So Seward, where you are now,  is in the southern part of Alaska. How long is it going to take you to get that  far north to where the ice is?

[Zachary Winters-Staszak] “It  will take us roughly about a week to get up to the Barrow area, where we’ll  start looking for different types of ice. The various technologies that are  being demonstrated have different requirements for the type of ice they need to  be deployed in.”

So how will you be using these  different technologies once you get to where you need to be in the ice? 

[Zachary Winters-Staszak] “So  this year the Coast Guard is presenting the scientists here with an oil spill  simulation where they’re going to use an inert dye compound they’re going to  put into the water which will just naturally dissipate over time and we’re  going to deploy various technologies to try and track what they’re calling a  plume, a dye plume, and NOAA’s here to kind of work in the same vein as if it  were an actual oil spill.”

Can you tell us a little bit  more about NOAA’s role in this exercise?

[Zachary Winters-Staszak]  “NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration is here to support the Coast Guard  in their mission. We provide scientific support to the Coast Guard during  pollution spills and natural disaster response. The U.S. Coast Guard Research  and Development Center, which is facilitating this exercise, they’ve done it  since 2012 and this is the second year that we’ve been invited to participate.  NOAA is also represented by the unmanned aircraft system program office.  They’ll be collecting aerial imagery and data with a small unmanned planned  called the Puma. NOAA is also represented during this mission by the National  Ice Center. The lead scientist for that center is here.”

So the scientific crew on the  ship are mainly from the Coast Guard and NOAA, right?

[Zachary Winters-Staszak] “Oh  no, there’s plenty of other organizations, institutes, and agencies that are  onboard as well. One of the cool things we’re looking at is the Oil Spill  Recovery Institute sent up some drifter buoys for us to deploy and track the  ice movement and sea surface currents. They actually provided initial funding  for Arctic ERMA, which I’ll talk about in a little bit. University of  Washington’s Applied Physics Lab is here. We work with them on the marginal ice  zone program looking at sea ice dynamics. Cambridge University is here. They’ll  be deploying an autonomous underwater vehicle, an AUV, to try and map the  underside of the ice where oil tends to collect. And also one of the main  technology - what we’re calling nodes - is an aerostat balloon that’s going to  collect video and imagery, and that’s by Inland-Gulf Maritime, and we worked  with them earlier this year on another demonstration project.”

So there’s a lot of different  technologies at work with the oil spill simulation. As I understand it, your  specific role on this mission, along with your colleague Jill Bodnar, has to do  with putting all this data that is gathered together into a mapping product for  everyone to use. It’s a tool you referred to as ‘Arctic ERMA’ just a moment  ago. Can you explain what this is?

[Zachary Winters-Staszak] “So  ERMA is NOAA’s Environmental Response Management Application. It’s an  Internet-accessible geographic information system, or Internet-based map. One  of our main roles here is to integrate the data streams from various  technologies being demonstrated here. We’ll bring those data streams into ERMA  to provide a centralized visual representation of data that are collected in  the field. For Arctic Shield specifically, we’ve brought a stand-alone instance  of ERMA that doesn’t require an Internet connection and this is going to come  in very handy because most of the Alaska coast is very remote and Internet  isn’t available, especially out in the Arctic Ocean. The need for a tool like  this that fills that gap was especially apparent in the native Alaska  communities that we’ve held workshops in. Internet is even unreliable in towns  like Barrow, which have a fairly substantial population and infrastructure for  an Arctic community.”

I think some people may have a  hard time visualizing what the Arctic ERMA tool really looks like. 

[Zachary Winters-Staszak] “You  go to Google Maps and you try to route some place that you need to go. ERMA is  going to look a lot like that. There’s going to be a map there for you to  orient yourself and then you think about the various spatial data products that  are out there — you can have high resolution imagery, you can zoom in and see down  to two point five meter resolution. You can have, for, you know for ERMA, it  makes sense that we would have a lot of wildlife information. You know, where  are bowhead whales in different seasons? Where do sea birds nest during various  seasons and different times of the year. What type of shoreline do they like?  Is there a more rocky shoreline that a different species gravitates to, you  know, mud flats ,tundra, those type of things, we can put those on a map all  together in one centralized focus.”

That’s pretty cool. So it  gives the people who are responding to, say, an an oil spill a really detailed  view of not only where the oil is and where it is moving, but also where the  the wildlife is at.

[Zachary Winters-Staszak]  “Exactly. So you can bring in operational data if there were an incident. So  you could have ship locations, say, if two ships were to collide. You could  have those point features overlaid on the map, and also have sensitive habitat  turned on, so you can see proximity to where oil could potentially spill and  come aground in those areas. So you can deploy measures to protect those really  sensitive areas, those can also be placed on the map.” 

I can see how useful that  would be. But here’s a question I’m sure you sometimes hear: why couldn’t you  just simulate dealing with a spill in a cold, icy place by using, say, a  computer model? What’s the benefit of actually travel to the Arctic on an  icebreaker instead of just doing this exercise from home?

[Zachary Winters-Staszak]  “Well, the U.S. Arctic is home to a lot of people. There are many native  Alaskan communities, and those communities could be severely affected if oil  were to be spilled. These communities rely on the Arctic environment for  subsistence activity that are fundamental to their cultural heritage. I think  to be truly prepared, you can’t replace hands on experience in an environment  that you’re looking to protect. If oil were actually on the water, on the ice,  you would quickly ask questions: how do you get there? How far is any significant  infrastructure from where the spill could potentially occur? A lot of these  places are really, really remote, so where would oil spill responders sleep and  eat? What equipment do you need? How do you get that there? These are questions  that are best answered, I think, when you actually have to deal with it. And  that’s not necessarily something that Arctic Shield is focused on, but having  professionals in the field like you do here dealing with the Arctic  environment, dealing with the elements, those questions are in people’s minds.  People are actively thinking about these situations.”

I guess I just have one more  question. What’s it like to be on an icebreaker in such a remote place for such  a long time? I understand that this is the second year for you participating in  Arctic Shield. 

[Zachary Winters-Staszak]  “Well, you better really like your bunkmates! Three people to a room, six  people to a bathroom. No, you get into a routine like anything else pretty  quickly: early mornings, long days, early nights. Rinse, repeat. The crew that  operate the ship are very good-natured, fun to be around, helpful, and it’s  just gratifying to work with the different scientists towards a common goal  with such an important purpose behind it. There’s really nothing quite like the  high Arctic. It’s very harsh and uncompromising, but in the same right it’s  also utterly beautiful. I feel really lucky to have the opportunity to be here  and to be a part of a demonstration like this.”

Zach, thanks for taking the  time to talk before heading out — and safe travels! Is there anything else you  want to add?

[Zachary Winters-Staszak] “So  there are a great amount of unknowns when it comes to oil spill response in the  Arctic. The region is entering into a new era. There’s a great deal of work to  be done. But NOAA is really committed to stewardship in the region and will  continue to provide sound scientific research and support to protect the Arctic  environment and the people that depend on it.”

That was Zachary Winters-Staszak,  Geographic Information Systems specialist with NOAA’s Response and Restoration  office. 

Want to know more about Arctic  Shield? Check our show notes for the links. You can find us on the web atoceanservice.noaa.gov.  Have a question? Shoot us an email at nos.info@noaa.gov.  And thanks for listening to Making Waves from NOAA's National Ocean Service.

From corals to coastal science, catch the current of the ocean with our audio and video podcast, **Making Waves**. 

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