Deepwater Horizon, BP Oil Spill: Coast Guard Response – Then and Now

By J.R. Wilson - July 25, 2012

An April 21, 2010, aerial photo shows oil in the Gulf of Mexico, more than 50 miles southeast of Venice, La., as the Deepwater Horizon oil rig burns. The oil platform, which burned for more than a day after a massive explosion, sank into the Gulf on April 22, 2010. The resulting environmental emergency far surpassed the spillage of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska. An estimated 60,000 barrels of oil gushed each day for 87 days, making the Deepwater Horizon spill and its response unprecedented. As a result, the Coast Guard’s role expanded under the National Contingency Plan and called for the service to direct all response efforts to contain and clean up the oil spill. AP photo/Gerald Herbert

Which is not to say those involved in incident management policy believe there is nothing left to do. One of the most significant changes now under way, largely resulting from the Deepwater Horizon experience, is the creation of a Coast Guard Incident Management Assistance Team – a small contingent of Coast Guard personnel whose full-time job will be to mobilize quickly to major incidents with the communications and other equipment needed to assist the FOSC in managing the response. Between such deployments, they will conduct assessments and training of unit, sector, and district Coast Guard responders.

“Because we are always operational, our ability to surge for the short term is very good, but our ability to sustain that surge is a challenge because we are a small organization with nationwide responsibilities that don’t stop. [Deepwater] was the final straw that made us realize we need to invest in a team that can provide a full-time surge capacity,” Thomas explained. “They are beginning to form this summer and will be fully up and ready to go in 2014.”

The Coast Guard also is putting greater emphasis on developing guidance for responding to spills of national significance. She said considerable progress has been made in creating a better understanding of that among government officials at all levels, but more remains to be done.

The service also has instituted an advanced education program in emergency management for officers and enlisted members. In addition, Thomas said a new FOSC representative training course will provide junior incident commanders with a better understanding of what they need to do for smaller spills, which occur almost daily, but also enhance the Coast Guard’s overall ability to respond to major incidents in the future.

Shoreline Cleanup Assessment Technique team member Mark Kulp, Ph.D., team leader from the University of New Orleans, checks affected shoreline in St. Mary’s Point, La., as part of the Deepwater Horizon response, Oct. 2, 2010. What oil remains today is embedded in marshes or grasses along Louisiana’s shoreline. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Matthew Schofield

For now, however, Walker’s primary concern is completing the Coast Guard and GCIMT Deepwater Horizon-related operations, for which he expects to be the final FOSC.

“Every response has a continuum. The beginning is executed by the local Coast Guard authority, which builds an incident command structure to execute the large body of the response. As you approach the last 20 to 30 percent of that spectrum, it takes close coordination with stakeholders and local Coast Guard resumes control and manages it through to conclusion,” he said. “It’s very difficult to know where you are in that spectrum; it’s easier to look back or to [define] the end, but that’s hard to predict because you can’t really see the end.”

There is no free-flowing oil from the spill in the Gulf of Mexico today, he added; what remains is embedded in marshes or grasses. The GCIMT is analyzing and assessing reports on how much of that is being recovered, watching the data for trends.

“At this point, I really can’t offer a reasonable guess as to when this effort will end, although we do see a reducing trendline, significantly, from last year, six months ago, and three months ago. But we also continue to encounter submerged mats [a mixture of oil and other organic matter], which does cause a spike,” Walker explained. “In simple terms, it will be over when all identified recoverable oil has been recovered. That’s the metric. The task ahead for me and the GCIMT is to decide what’s recoverable and what’s not. When you look at marshland, where the only remaining option is to excavate the oil, that might do more harm than allowing it to recover on its own.”

The enormous size of the spill – estimated at about 60,000 barrels a day at its peak, flowing from the damaged well for 87 days, potentially covering thousands of square miles of water and almost 4,400 miles of shoreline, including Louisiana’s vast array of bays and inlets – made both Deepwater Horizon and the response unprecedented. On the single-most demanding day, more than 6,000 vessels, 102 aircraft, and nearly 48,000 personnel were working to contain the spill.

“Even Exxon Valdez pales in comparison to the volume, scale, number of Coast Guard resources, how much time has been devoted to it – all far exceed any previous event. And then you add the complexity of covering four different states and federal lands, as well,” Walker said.