Ohmsett – The US National Oil Spill Response Test Facility, held its first ever Hands-on Dispersant Training Course on April 29 & 30. Students from the United States (including members of the U.S. Coast Guard Strike Teams), Norway, Panama, and the United Kingdom completed classroom and hands-on training in the Ohmsett tank.
Instruction was provided by leading dispersant experts Ken Trudel and Randy Belore from SL Ross Environmental Research Ltd., Ottawa, Canada. The focus of the training was practical experience dispersing oil slicks of crude oil under near-at-sea conditions in the large outdoor Ohmsett wave tank. Training included: a brief refresher on dispersants emphasizing effectiveness and effectiveness monitoring; familiarization with instruments useful in monitoring effectiveness; and a full day of experience dispersing oil slicks in the wave tank and collecting dispersant-treated oil with skimmers.
On the first day students spent the morning in the classroom for a dispersant primer/refresher. The afternoon was spent becoming familiar with and comparing the different the oil spill monitoring instruments.
“The focus of this training was dispersant operations and effectiveness at sea, how do dispersants work, what limits their performance and how best to monitor dispersant effectiveness at sea”, said Ken Trudel. “The Ohmsett wave tank offers a unique opportunity to provide oil-spill professionals in the U.S. with practical experience with dispersants that would otherwise be available only in actual spills or sea trials. The difference is that here at Ohmsett we can see what is going on a lot better, we have better control and we do not need a permit to spill oil”. He went on to say that parts of the training were designed to meet the needs of USCG Strike Force Monitoring Teams, but the on-tank experience is extremely valuable to any oil spill professional.
Recently tasked with oversight of the Gulf of Mexico emergency response team for BP, Earnest Bush attended this course to increase his knowledge of emergency response technologies. “This is an excellent and very thorough course. It is great to have the background knowledge on dispersant use and also their effectiveness,” said Bush.
On the second day, in the Ohmsett tank students observed the interactions of oil and dispersants in the water with waves. They also had the opportunity to set-up and use monitoring instruments, and learn how to record and communicate the monitoring results. At the end of the tank runs, they got to see the effectiveness of using skimmers for oil that was treated with dispersants, but had not been dispersed.
“The primary emphasis was on visual observations and the visual signs of dispersant-oil interactions. The instruments were those the strike teams use to monitor effectiveness (the old Turner 10 AU and newer Turner C3) and that are used to measure oil droplet size (the property of the dispersed oil that results in the visual signs that the monitors observe),” stated Trudel.
Stale Jensen, an environmental advisor for the Norwegian Clean Seas Association for Operating Companies (NOFO), said dispersants are still rather new and that they are just starting to use dispersants as a response tool. "As we have little experience with the practical use of dispersants in Norway, exercises in the field, with real oil on ocean, tend to have a focus on research of mechanisms, as well as on the plain successfulness of the dispersant application."
Natasha Lippens, a technical advisor representing the International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation Limited (ITOPF) based in the United Kingdom, said ITOPF has used dispersants in the field as a viable response tool; however she has never used any of the instrumentation before. “This is something they could potentially use in the field to interpret results, so it was definitely worth understanding [this part of the training].”