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

Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Response
Figure 5-18. SUPSALV equipment staged for decontamination inside Decontamination
Pool No. 1 at Theodore, Alabama.
5-6 Houston Engineering Support and Underwater Survey
In addition to the Beach and Gulf Water Operations, SUPSALV supported the ICS from the
Houston ICP. The original Coast Guard tasking requested “immediate support in following areas:
oil spill control and recovery equipment, as well as operating personnel and additional salvage,
diving, ROV services and consultation may be required as situation develops”. This section
describes SUPSALV’s support of the Houston well containment mission as well as SUPSALV’s
support for Department of Interior and Department of Justice.
5-6.1 Houston Task, Manning, Coordination
SUPSALV was tasked with supporting the Unified Incident Command - Source Control in
Houston, TX. Vice Admiral Kevin M. McCoy, Commander, Naval Sea Systems Command,
tasked the Director of Ocean Engineering, SEA 00C, CAPT Patrick Keenan and Deputy Director,
SEA 00CB, Michael Dean, to support the DWH response from the BP Crisis Center, in Houston.
These two senior engineers rotated on site for the entire length of the oil spill. There were three
principal reasons for deploying SUPSALV to the Crisis Center. They included:
1. Since the response had been federalized, the U.S. Navy wanted to assign engineering
assistance to BP in the event there were avenues of additional assistance the Navy could
provide during the source control process. The two primary tasks at the BP Crisis Center
were well head closure and oil collection and containment at the well head. Supervisor of
Salvage (SUPSALV) senior engineer, Michael Dean, (00CB) was assigned because of
his extensive underwater ship husbandry experience and because he is the Navy’s
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