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

Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Response
Richard Buckingham, and finally to the Command Center in Gulfport became a high priority, stop
everything drill requiring immediate, high level attention.
After staffing ad hoc responses to numerous “good ideas” coming from both the public and
private sector, the National Incident Commander established an Interagency Alternative
Technology Assessment Panel (IATAP) to provide an established process to fairly evaluate the
merits of plausible improvements to the oil cleanup process. The establishment of this
assessment program took a significant load off the Navy staff, reducing the number of
distractions and demands on their time for issues relating to suggested process improvements.
Examples of the IATAP evaluations SUPSALV personnel took part in are included in Para 5-3.3.
2-2.7 Access to Fresh Oil
Crude oil bubbling to the surface has a different consistency than oil that has been floating for a
couple of days. The aged oil turns into a thick, slimy mess and becomes contaminated with
floating ocean debris. Clean fresh oil is more easily handled and can be separated from the
water efficiently by SUPSALV’s skimmer systems. For these reasons, the SUPSALV VOSS
teams always desired assignment to the Gulf waters in the vicinity of the flowing oil. Conflicting
priorities at the well site didn’t always allow that access. Because multiple strategies were being
employed; In-situ burn, mechanical recovery (large volume skimmers), and dispersal,
SUPSALV’s VOSS teams were not always given access to the fresh oil. The decision makers
were balancing multiple priorities but from SUPSALV’s perspective, their VOSS OSVs which
were manned and ready to collect oil were not always placed where the fresh oil was.
2-2.8 Timely Aerial Reconnaissance.
Offshore Support Vessels (OSV) with NOFI VOSS skimmers deployed are limited to traveling at
about 3 knots. Other VOSS skimmers are slower, at about 0.8 kts. MARCO Class V skimmers
move at 1.0 kts unless rigged for towing where they are capable of 5 – 6 kts. Retrieving gear
and redeploying it is time consuming. Because of this slow pace of advance, sending VOSS or
MARCO belt skimmers off in search of oil spotted the day before was ineffective and wasteful.
The delay between sighting oil and getting assigned to a patrol / skimming area meant that the
skimmers were often looking for the spotted pockets of oil from the height of eye of the wheel
house rather than having a timely aerial reconnaissance locate the oil.
In an attempt to improve timeliness of oil spotting reports, the Navy activated its airship, MZ-3A
which arrived in the Gulf Region on 6 July to assist in spotting and monitoring oil and support
command and control of skimming operations. The Airship began operating from a mooring three
miles Southeast of Mobile Bay but was later based at Jack Edwards Airport AL, just east of
Mobile Bay. It typically flew six-hour sorties and would report surface oil sightings to the task
force. Communications with the afloat task force and ICP leadership proved difficult and the
airship did not make the contribution that was hoped for.
2-7