bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Offshore Oil Spill Incidents: Creating a Database in Brazil
Authors: Maggi Patricia , Morgado Cláudia do Rosário Vaz , de Almeida João Carlos Nóbrega 
Published: August 2014

ABSTRACT
Brazil has performed an important role in the oil and gas industry mainly because its offshore E&P activities. The volume of oil produced in offshore fields had increased 88% in the last decade and correspond to more than 90% of national production.
The maritime Exploration and Production (E&P) operations in Brazil started in the middle of the 1970's. In 1981 a law was promulgated to establish a compulsory environmental permit to many activities, including oil and gas exploration and production activities. Although this regulation has existed for over 25 years, only in 1999 was it effectively brought into force to the E&P sector, with the creation of the oil and gas specialized office integrated to the Intituto Brasileiro de Meio Ambiente e Recursos Naturais Renováveis – IBAMA (Brazilian Federal Environmental Agency).
On January 2000 Brazil faced one its worst oil spills, in Guanabara Bay. A broken pipeline owned and operated by Petrobras spilt 1300 tone of bunker fuel into Guanabara Bay, Rio de Janeiro. At that time, Brazil had no clear environmental scenario regarding the oil industry in Brazil: uncoordinated environmental regulations, debilitated environmental agencies and a relapse industry took part in the scenario.
As a result of the repercussion of the disaster, in the same year was enacted the Federal Law 9966/2000, the so called “Oil Law”, on the prevention, control and inspection of pollution caused by the releasing of oil and other harmful substances in waters under national jurisdiction. The provisions of the Law 9966 included, among other things, the requirement for the notification to the competent environmental authority, the maritime authority and the oil regulating agency, of any incident which might cause water pollution.
Although IBAMA receives the oil spill communications since 2001, only in 2010 the Agency began to include this information in a database.
This paper discusses the offshore oil spill data received between 2010 and 2012.
CANADA – UNITED STATES (SALISH SEA) SPILL RESPONSE ORGANIZATIONS: A COMPARISON
Authors: Knutson Scott , Dougans Craig , Reiter Gary , Rodden Don , Kidd Erik 
Published: August 2014

ABSTRACT
The Salish Sea comprises the inland marine waters of Washington and British Columbia and is intersected by an international border between Canada and the United States. Planning for oil spills that threaten to cross the international border is under the jurisdiction of the Canadian Coast Guard and the United States Coast Guard as described in the Canada-United States Joint Marine Contingency Plan. As Canadian companies gain approval to construct new pipelines in order to move oil sands from Alberta, Canada, to Vancouver, British Columbia, and westward, governments, agencies and citizens are publicly questioning whether current levels of oil spill preparedness and response equipment will be adequate for the increased tanker traffic from Canadian ports. This paper will be a single document that contains a snapshot of regulations, actual inventories and current philosophies that make up the 2014 response picture for the Salish Sea. It does not seek to denigrate either nation's response posture but rather to provide hard numbers as a common foundation for future discussions.
Best Available Techniques Applied to the Offshore Oil and Gas Industry
Authors: Vandenbussche Valentin , Thylander Emma Karlstrøm , Millet Daniel 
Published: August 2014

ABSTRACT
Best Available Techniques (BAT) is a principle originally defined in the EU directive on Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC). The overall ambition of the directive is to reduce emissions and impacts on the environment as a whole. The purpose of a BAT assessment is to identify the technique with the best environmental performance among all available techniques for a certain industrial application. Such assessment should also take into account technical and economic constraints. A wide variety of industries fall under the scope of the IPPC requirement for BAT in Europe.
The BAT approach is more and more applied in countries outside of EU, and adopted by private organisations as a best practice. In the offshore Oil & Gas industry in Norway, for instance, the BAT approach is now applied to many systems, such as power generation, produced water management, VOC recovery, or, more recently, leak detection and remote sensing. The particularity of the site-specific constraints as well as a lifecycle perspective, typical of the offshore Oil & Gas industry, makes the application of the BAT approach challenging for this sector. Best Available Techniques for offshore applications are therefore site-specific, and require a case by case assessment. In addition, in countries such as Norway, there is no guideline or directive describing how to perform a BAT assessment, which hence needs interpretation and adjustment for each individual application.
DNV has developed a methodology for BAT assessments specifically for the offshore industry. This methodology is based on a ranking of the environmental performance as well as technical feasibility, reliability and costs of available industrial concepts. The approach is applicable to various stages of offshore Oil & Gas projects. This paper will describe the BAT methodology for the offshore Oil & Gas industry, and give relevant examples of its application to various systems commonly found on offshore facilities. Challenges and future opportunities will also be presented and discussed.
A LABORATORY MESOCOSM AS A TOOL TO STUDY PAH DEGRADATION IN A COASTAL MARSH WETLAND
Authors: Batubara Doorce S. , Adrian Donald D. , Miles Martin S. , Malone Ronald F. 
Published: August 2014

ABSTRACT
Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are one of the contaminants of concern in coastal marsh environments which are subject to crude oil spills. A laboratory scale mesocosm can be used to complement field study of PAH degradation in coastal marshes. Coastal marsh wetland features, such as its soil, tidal cycles, and flushing, that may play roles in PAH degradation can be simulated in a laboratory mesocosm. The laboratory mesocosm tank is made of acrylic as the main construction material with an air chamber inside the tank which functions as a pneumatic system and tidal water storage compartment. Two trays filled with contaminated marsh wetland soil are situated at two different levels: the lower one is constantly submerged while the higher one is intermittently drained. When the air pressure inside the air chamber is high, the water will flow out from the air chamber to the tank to create high tide. When the air pressure inside the air chamber is low, the water will flow back from the tank to the air chamber to create low tide inside the tank. The tidal water sits in the air chamber until the next high air pressure. The cycles of air pressure inside the tank are controlled by an electrical air pump connected to a timer. The experimental setup can consist of several replicates with an air chamber inside each replicate is controlled by a master pneumatic tank. The model PAH contaminant used in the experiment was phenanthrene, a three-benzene-ring PAH, which was spiked to the wetland soil. The experimental results show that the phenanthrene degradation in the intertidal wetland soil is higher than that of in the subtidal wetland soil presumably due to the availability of oxygen in the intertidal wetland soil. The laboratory mesocosm developed in this study can be used as a tool for examining PAH degradation and other non-volatile organic contaminants.
25 years of collaboration: the Pacific States/British Columbia Oil Spill Task Force 1989–2014
Authors: Brace Sarah 
Published: August 2014

ABSTRACT
Two significant west coast spill incidents, the barge Nestucca spill in B.C. in 1988 and the tanker Exxon Valdez spill of 1989 catalyzed the formal creation of the Pacific States/British Columbia Oil Spill Task Force, a union of Alaska, California, Oregon, Washington and British Columbia. Hawaii joined 12 years later and for the past 25 years the Task Force member organizations have collaborated on numerous projects and policy initiatives that have significantly influenced how the west coast prevents, prepares for and responds to oil spills. This paper will: 1) Provide an overview of how the Task Force functions and how it fosters collaboration between industry, agencies, and other stakeholders in the region; 2) Highlight key projects and accomplishments from the past two decades, including Transboundary coordination, vessel traffic risk studies, mutual aid agreements, and federal regulatory oversight; and how these projects were initiated and carried out; 3) Offer examples of how the Task Force is looking at challenges ahead, such as the shifting landscape of energy transportation and emerging fuels in the region, and what this means for spill prevention and response.
Research Overview of the Consortium for Advanced Research on Transport of Hydrocarbon in the Environment (CARTHE)
Authors: Özgökmen Tamay M. , Beron-Vera Francisco J. , Bogucki Darek , Chen Shuyi S. , Dawson Clint , Dewar William , Griffa Annalisa , Haus Brian K. , Haza Angelique C. , Huntley Helga , Iskandarani Mohamed , Jacobs Gregg , Jagers Bert , Kirwan A.D. , Laxague Nathan , Lipphardt Bruce , MacMahan Jamie , Mariano Arthur J. , Olascoaga Josefina , Novelli Guillaume , Poje Andrew C. , Reniers A.J.H.M. , Restrepo Juan M. , Rosenheim Brad , Ryan Edward H. , Smith Conor , Soloviev Alexander , Venkataramani Shankar , Zha Ge-Cheng , Zhu Ping 
Published: August 2014

ABSTRACTCARTHE (http://carthe.org/) is a Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) consortium established through a competitive peer-reviewed selection process. CARTHE comprises 26 principal investigators from 14 universities and research institutions distributed across four Gulf of Mexico states and other four states. It fuses into one group investigators with unique scientific and technical knowledge and extensive publications related to oil fate/transport processes, oceanic and atmospheric turbulence, air-sea interactions, tropical cyclones and winter storms, and coastal and nearshore modeling and observations.Our primary goal is to accurately predict the fate of hydrocarbons released into the environment. Achieving this goal is particularly challenging since petroleum releases into the environment interact with natural processes across six orders of magnitude of time and space scales. We are developing a multi-scale modeling tool by incorporating state-of-the-art hydrophysical models, each applicable for a restricted range of scales, into a single, interconnected modeling system to predict the physical dispersal of hydrocarbons across scales ranging from the microscale at the wellhead to oceanic and atmospheric mesoscales. CARTHE is also conducting novel in-situ observations and laboratory experiments specifically designed for quantifying submesoscale dispersion as well as for both model validation and parameterization. Finally, we are providing a robust set of uncertainty metrics and analysis tools to assess model performance and quantify predictive uncertainty.
Testing of Oil Recovery Skimmers in Ice at Ohmsett The National Oil Spill Response Research & Renewable Energy Test Facility
Authors: Schmidt Bill , Meyer Paul , Potter Steve 
Published: August 2014

ABSTRACT
The mechanical recovery of oil in ice-infested water presents unique and difficult clean-up challenges. Ice can impede the movement of spilled oil making it less available for removal by the active components of oil recovery skimmers. Ice and slush that is recovered with oil can jam the skimmer, pump inlets and hoses and can provide an environment for enhanced emulsion formation. Low temperatures increase oil viscosity, further complicating processing and pumping of recovered product.
In response to these challenges, the U.S. Department of the Interior's Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) recognized the need for comprehensive programs of testing and research in the area of oil spill response in icy waters. BSEE has supported and sponsored a number of testing and research programs at the Ohmsett facility involving oil in cold water and ice. During the winter of 2013, BSEE sponsored an oil-in-ice spill test at Ohmsett titled Skimmer Tests in Drift Ice: Ice Month 2013 at Ohmsett. The tests involved ten commercially available skimmers that represented a range of skimmer types. Testing was done in the Ohmsett test basin using a controlled test area with fabricated ice. To the best extent possible, test variables such as water temperature, oil characteristics, oil slick thickness, ice coverage and size distribution, and skimmer operations were controlled. Performance determinations were made for oil recovery rate and oil recovery efficiency as per the general principles and guidelines of ASTM F2709. Tabulated results for the same are presented.
At lower ice coverage (30% ice), there was no significant mechanical impediment for most skimmers. However, ice can interfere with the flow of oil to the skimmer periodically even in this coverage. At higher ice coverage (70% ice), there was significant impediment to skimming, with most skimmers having dramatically lower rates and efficiencies. It was also observed that with longer exposure to skimming under these conditions, operators became more proficient with regard to recovery performance. This indicates the importance of training and practice for effective skimming operations.
Hoverspill: a new amphibious vehicle for responding in difficult-to-access sites
Authors:   The Hoverspill consortium
Published: August 2014

ABSTRACT
Oil spill experience often shows that response activities are hampered due to the absence of operative autonomous support capable of reaching particular sites or operate in safe and efficient conditions in areas such as saltmarshes, mudflats, river banks, cliff bottoms… This is the purpose of the so-called FP7 Hoverspill project (www.hoverspill.eu), a 3-year European project that recently reached completion: to design and build a small-size amphibious vehicle designed to ensure rapid oil spill response. The result is an air-cushion vehicle (ACV), known as Hoverspill, based on the innovative MACP (Multipurpose Air Cushion Platform) developed by Hovertech and SOA. It is a completely amphibious vehicle capable of working on land and on water, usable as a pontoon in floating conditions. Its compactness makes it easy to transport by road. The project also included the design and building of a highly effective integrated O/W Turbylec separator developed by YLEC. Spill response equipment will be loaded on-board based on a modular concept enabling the vehicle to carry out specific tasks with just the required equipment.
Tactical Predictions of Shoreline Oiling Probability via Machine Learning Models and Satellite-Derived Surface Oil Analysis Products
Authors: Nixon Zachary 
Published: August 2014

ABSTRACT
For significant oil spills in remote areas with complex shoreline geometry, apportioning Shoreline Cleanup Assessment Technique (SCAT) survey effort is a complicated and difficult task. Aerial surveys are often used to select shoreline areas for ground survey after an initial prioritization based upon anecdotal reports or trajectory models, but aerial observers may have difficulty locating cryptic surface shoreline oiling in vegetated or other complex environments. In dynamic beach environments, stranded shoreline oiling may be rapidly buried, making aerial observation difficult. A machine learning-based model is presented for estimating shoreline oiling probabilities via satellite-derived surface oil analysis products, wind summary data, and shoreline habitat type and geometry data. These inputs are increasingly available at spatial and temporal scales sufficient for tactical use, enabling model predictions to be generated within hours after satellite remote sensing products are available.
The model was constructed using SCAT data from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, satellite-derived surface oil analysis products generated during the spill by NOAA's National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) using a variety of satellite platforms of opportunity, and available shoreline geometry, character, and other preexisting data. The model involves the generation of set of spatial indices of relative over-water proximity of surface oil slicks based upon the satellite-derived analysis products. The model then uses boosted regression trees (BRT), a flexible and relatively recently developed modeling methodology, to generate calibrated estimates of probability of subsequent shoreline oiling based upon these indices, wind climatological data over the time period of interest, and other shoreline data. The model can be implemented via data preparation in any Geographic Information System (GIS) software coupled with the open-source statistical computing language, R. The model is entirely probabilistic and makes no attempt to reproduce the physics of oil moving through the environment, as do trajectory models. It is best used in concert with such models to make estimates at different spatial scales, or when time and data requirements make implementation of fine-scale trajectory modeling impractical for tactical use. The details of model development implementation and assessments of model performance and limitations are presented.
PRACTICAL, ENVIRONMENTAL AND STRATEGICAL EXPERIENCES FROM TWO SPILLS IN 2011 OF CRUDE OIL AND CTO ALONG THE SWEDISH COASTLINE
Authors: Holmström Katrin , Gyllenhammar Charlotte , Håstad Ingrid , Fogelberg Oscar , Törneman Niklas 
Published: August 2014

ABSTRACT
In 2011, the Swedish coastline suffered two major oil spills. About 500 tonnes of bunker oil occurred in the marine waters of the west coast, in the waters of Skagerrak, on to the coastline of the Tjörn archipelago. The second spill, about 800 tonnes of CTO (crude tall oil) occurred from a land based tank farm on the east coast, into the Söderhamn archipelago in the brackish Baltic Sea. Both impacted areas exhibit a high ecological value and are frequently used for outdoor recreation. In Söderhamn, many private properties were impacted as opposed to Tjörn, where the archipelago is common land.
The affected coastal area at Tjörn comprise rocky beaches with varying degrees of cracks, bays, rock pools, etc. At Tjörn, remediation has been made through manual labor combined with experimental methods facilitating faster manual removal; such as mineral oil degreasers, coconut oil, rapeseed oil, and heating up the oil by means of a torch. Manual labor through scraping with various tools (e.g. spatulas, knives, cloths) has however been the main method. The remediation was difficult and dangerous due to the slippery rocks and tough weather conditions.
The shores of the Söderhamn Bay consist mainly of rocky beaches, large rocks as well as very small pebble stones. Since the oil also got into jetties, the entire clean-up process has been difficult and time consuming, also due to the cold weather conditions in the north. Remediation of the shores and stone coffins, inside the jetties, has been made through manual labor.
The impacts to the bird population were minimal in both incidents since most birds had migrated for the winter. At Tjörn, some short-term impact could be noted on indicator species like the Blue mussel. The incident happened during late fall, when the biological activity in marine organisms is low; hence low impact on the marine organism's active reproductive periods.
In Söderhamn, fatty acids, recin acids and sterols have been sampled in sediments, fish muscle, and mussels. Limited impact could be noted, however, established test methods are missing for CTO. Degradation time of the CTO was longer than expected.
Extensive and hardcore cleanup usually causes more damage to nature; removal of important microorganisms, increased soil erosion and diminishes the possibilities for the vegetation recovery. It is cucial to start the communication process with public and property owners as early as possible to set expectations on how clean is clean.
MANAGING THE RESOURCE CONSULTATION PROCESS: A CASE STUDY FROM THE JIREH GROUNDING RESPONSE
Authors: Preble Kristen , Benggio Bradford 
Published: August 2014

ABSTRACT
The grounding of the 202-foot freight vessel JIREH, which occurred on June 21, 2012 on the Mona Island Natural Reserve in Puerto Rico, triggered a three month long response in what is arguably the most environmentally sensitive location in Puerto Rico and much of the Caribbean. Prior to, during, and after the response, the Federal On-Scene Coordinator worked closely with United States Government and Commonwealth of Puerto Rico agencies to ensure all natural and historic resource consultation mandates required under Federal law were initiated properly. This paper explores how the Endangered Species Act, Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, and National Historic Preservation Act consultation requirements were applied before the JIREH response through development of the Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands Area Contingency Plan, during the response through multiple informal Emergency Consultations, and post-response through Formal Consultations. This examination will serve to highlight, through the lens of the JIREH response, the complexities of pre-planning for resource consultations, the challenges experienced by the Federal On-Scene Coordinator during an event, and provide recommendations to ensure resource consultation requirements are applied consistently and transparently in the future.