Planning for next time: Matching resources with reality
Posted on | July 13, 2010 | No Comments
Nostalgia, as the saying goes, isn’t what it used to be. Reminiscence is kinder; when we look back, in the mellow afterglow of selective memory, it often seems that everything either went according to plan or, at any rate, went just as we said it would. Hindsight is more rigourous. It means examining, understanding and learning from experience.
In the belief that hindsight actually works, a number of panels, commissions and committees are starting the process of evaluating what can be learned from the precedent-shattering Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
Adequacy of funding is one problem. Sufficiency and design of equipment is another. Skimmers, in particular, have undergone a process of “improvised evolution”, from incident to incident, which might be improved upon in the light of Deepwater Horizon experience.
As an American official recently observed: “The hard decisions are always about resources”. Since the wreck of the Torrey Canyon on 18 March 1967, governments, industry and the public have struggled to prepare for, and cope with, “a discharge, or threat of discharge, of oil or a hazardous substance from a vessel, offshore facility, or onshore facility”, as Rear Admiral Brian Salerno of the U. S. Coast Guard puts it.
The European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA), and national oil spill and environmental protection departments, have potential resourcing problems, similar to those now being seen in the United States.
The cost of response, clean-up and remediation is going up, at the same time that fiscal reform has become a number one priority. In Europe, this is called the “Greece effect”.
While the continuous flow of oil from the Macondo well has been termed a “black swan” event, without precedent in the history of oil spills, the record tells a somewhat different story. Statistically, there have been 44 notable blow-outs of offshore wells, resulting in 79 deaths, with one event in 1979 causing massive pollution. In the 55-year period from 1955-2010, the mean time between such blow-outs was about 15 months.
Within the Gulf of Mexico, in the 37-year period from 1964-2001, 10 offshore blow-outs, or 23% of those that occurred world-wide, took place. These resulted in 27 deaths, or 34% of those suffered world-wide. In one such event, involving the Sedco 135F rig, a spill of between 455 to 480 thousand tonnes of oil. By comparison, from 1955 to 2010 in the United Kingdom-North Sea sector, two blow-outs took place, one in 1977 on a fixed installation, and one in 1988 on a semi-submersible, with one fatality.
On the basis of this history, it would seem to be very desirable to consider, in Europe, North America and other regions, how much money is available for response and remediation.
In February, two months before the Gulf blow-out, the Obama administration proposed a three percent cut in the Coast Guard’s budget, reducing it to about $10 billion. With the benefit of hindsight, it is now clear that the timing of this proposal was unfortunate.
In attempting to contain the flow of oil from the stricken well, the Coast Guard and other agencies, together with state and local authorities, as well as BP, have deployed inflatable containment booms, absorbent booms and other floating obstructions, skimmer boats, barges, tugs, remotely operated vehicles, modified buoy tenders and specialised ships like the A Whale and Helix Producer. Because every spill has its own special features, a particular type of equipment may be found to be more effective in some cases than it is in others.
Nineteen Coast Guard cutters and two dozen aircraft of various types are reportedly in use as well. The number of ships and planes now in use is classified, because many of these represent assets that have been subtracted from other stations; the principle of “robbing Peter to pay Paul” has been widely noticed, and criticised.
The Coast Guard has a headcount of about 42,000 active servicemen and women, plus 7,500 reservists; by early July, nearly 3000 people — mostly reservists — were on duty in the Gulf of Mexico. Under present policy, reservists can serve only two 60-day tours of duty, at most, and then can’t be recalled for two years.
The withdrawal of Coast Guard personnel and equipment from law-enforcement, search and rescue, homeland security, environmental protection and safety-at-sea duties elsewhere, while understandable in an emergency, has raised the awareness of Congress that the response effort in the Gulf comes at a cost, in terms of the overall need for mission readiness, and allocation of vital resources.
For example, the urgent transfer of equipment and ships to the oil spill zone has meant the removal, from “normal” assignment, of nearly one-half of the Coast Guard’s buoy tender fleet, because these vessels are useful for skimming oil. This has meant a cutback in maintaining aids to navigation. Other cutters, aircraft and personnel have been subtracted from drug and migrant interdiction in the Caribbean.
In spite of this, the resource-stretched Coast Guard has for some reason not been exempted, unlike the other four uniformed services, from the proposed federal budget spending freeze.
During the current emergency, to plug the staffing gap, members of the Coast Guard Auxiliary have been asked to volunteer for at least 30 days. A call has also gone out for Coast Guard civilian employees to go to the Gulf for one month of twelve-hour days.
A thorough assessment of the effectiveness of the process as a whole, and whether adequate resources are being devoted to oil spill response, is widely anticipated. This is not because a similar “deep-water” blowout may be likely or conceivable, in other parts of the United States or elsewhere. It is because a variety of real-world issues, such as risk management, the effectiveness of the measures taken and resources available for future use are best planned for in light of “battlefield” experience.
What was done, why and how, whether the process worked, and what needs rethinking, will be studied and debated for some years to come.
Comments
Leave a Reply