U.S. NAVY SALVAGE REPORT DEEPWATER HORIZON ... - ESSM

Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Response
SUPSALV response teams eventually totaling nearly 140 people contributed the following to the
overall response efforts:
• Deployed 63,200 feet of oil containment boom (of the 98,000 feet brought to the Gulf of
Mexico) in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama at numerous sites.
• Manned eighteen Marco Class V skimmers operated from 4 states providing near shore
skimming services
• Deployed three offshore deep ocean skimming vessels of opportunity equipped with 5
high speed oil skimming systems to collect at the source of the leak
• Provided shore collection and recovery in the vicinity of Grand Isle, LA
• Provided oil well engineering support at BP Headquarters in Houston
• Performed drilling platform underwater survey using ROVs.
SUPSALV maintained equipment and personnel on site through 4 October 2010. During this 5
month period, the SUPSALV teams recovered more than 23,000 barrels of oil.
1-3 Purpose of Report
This report has been prepared to document the efforts, activities, and accomplishments of
SUPSALV’s pollution response to the Gulf Coast oil spill. The report also documents results of
using SUPSALV pollution response equipment, much of which has been extensively used in drill
environments but only some of which had been used in actual spills. The report will also provide
improvements and recommendations to enable SUPSALV to be more effective as a part of an
Incident Command System (ICS) and recommend equipment and procedure improvements to
support more effective oil collection. A separate final report, prepared by the ESSM contractor,
GPC, contains a day to day dialog of events, summary of ESSM specific lessons learned, and
additional photos of the oil spill recovery operation. It is included as Appendix A to this report.
1-4 Operational Considerations
1-4.1 00C Charter and Funded Oil Pollution Mission
SUPSALV’s oil spill response mission has its origins in Public Law and OPNAV Direction.
Public Law
Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) 10 U.S.C. §7361-7364 (Salvage Facilities Act) authorizes
the Secretary of the Navy to provide Salvage Facilities for public and private vessels, to maintain
a national salvage capability and an oil spill response capability.
CFR 33 U.S.C. 154 (Facilities) and 155 (Vessels) require facilities and vessels to maintain
response plans in event of an oil spill.
Oil Pollution Act, 1990, (OPA-90) states that the owner of a vessel and facility (Responsible
Party) from which oil is discharged upon navigable waters or adjoining shorelines is liable for the
removal cost and damages resulting from the spill.
OPNAV Direction
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