A Spill Drill

By Raquel Maria Dillon on Thursday, May 15, 2003.

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Two weeks ago, a barge headed for a power plant on Buzzards' Bay ran aground on some rocks. Four million gallons of number six fuel oil spilled and tarballs washed ashore all along the South Coast of Massachusetts.
Something similar could happend in the Pisquataqua River, where barges unload their cargo into gigantic heating oil storage tanks.
But a group of oil and energy companies say they are prepared to contain a spill and protect Portsmouth's Great Bay estuary. NHPR's Raquel Maria Dillon has more.

Spill Drill Feature 5/14/03

Two weeks ago, a barge headed for a power plant on Buzzards Bay ran aground on some rocks. Four million gallons of number six fuel oil spilled, and tarballs washed ashore all along the South Coast.
Something similar could happen in the Piscataqua River, where barges unload their cargo into gigantic heating oil storage tanks.
But a group of oil and energy companies say they’re prepared to contain a spill and protect the Portsmouth’s Great Bay estuary. NHPR’s Raquel Maria Dillon has more.
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Practice makes perfect, they say. So yesterday emergency officials and boat captains rehearsed for a disastrous oil spill in the Great Bay.
David Leathers is with the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services’ oil spill response division. He says the goal is to keep an oil spill out of the estuary and away from the nesting areas and clamflats there.
LEATHERS :16 the whole area is important for the economy, important for aesthetics. It’s a system you can’t put a value on. It’s that important that we have to come down here and practice this. To make sure we’re prepared in the event that one of these accidents happens.

On shore, energy plant workers were testing powerful vacuums that can suck up oil. Out on the water, boat captains and Coast Guard officers wrestled with booms designed to contain oil slicks.
LEATHERS :10 I think it’s going pretty well. There’s been some glitches, dealing with communication. That’s something you see often in this type of scenario role-playing.

Three energy companies operate terminals on the river – Public Service of New Hampshire, Sprague Energy, and Irving Oil. Together, they comprise the Piscataqua River Cooperative, which would clean up any spills in the river. The PRC holds this exercise twice a year, to test the preparedness of all the different industrial companies and government agencies that would step up in the event of a real spill.
LEATHERS :19 Navy Shipyard involved, Coast Guard, Maine DEP, Newington Fire Dept. in the event of any spill you would see all these players. and probably by the time it’s done you’d have other groups, community, volunteer conservation groups.

So, what substance acts like thick, sticky number six fuel oil out on the bay? Lots of things: popcorn, peat moss, rice hulls, and oranges. PRC President and PSNH Station Manager Don Gray says they opted for peat moss and oranges this time. Peat moss spreads across the surface like oil, and the oranges bob up and down on the waves like tarballs.
GRAY :20 popcorn was difficult to procure. the popcorn is made with oil and that’s not a good thing to put oily popcorn in the water. we’ve used upwards of a tractor trailer full of popcorn one year. Hehehe.

The currents in this tidal river are said to be among the strongest on the Eastern Seaboard. If in a real emergency oil had escaped from a barge or terminal downriver, Gray says it would reach the estuary quickly as the tide comes in.
GRAY :16 Typically we’ll see about a 10 foot tide twice a day. All the water rushes in, rushes out. The facilities are down at the narrow part of the river so it would be carried along with the water as it’s coming back in.

As the tide rose, barges reeled off oil containment booms and the oil skimmer boats circled.
The strategy is to arrange the booms in a large V-shape to collect the oil traveling upriver and keep it away from the shore. Cliff Yopp is with the Coast Guard.
YOPP :18 once you put the boom out in the V-configuration, as it’s incoming it’ll push it to either side of the bay or river. On those sides is where you’re going to start colleting it with skimmers. they’ve got the maps that will show the breeding grounds and clam shell beds and things like that they want to protect.

But a problem arose – one of the ends of the 3000-foot-long boom slipped its mooring. If there had been oil floating in the bay instead of peat moss, the seabird that populate the nearby rocks would be in trouble.
GRAY :15 if it were a real spill they would probably grab hold of with multiple boats and pull it over. But since it’s a drill I think we’re gonna leave it where it is and put it back on the barge and try again some day.

PSNH’s Don Gray blames the fast currents. He says the boom never slipped in past exercises, and he can’t explain exactly what went wrong. Environmental regulators from both New Hampshire and Maine, and Coast Guard officials will find out why. They’re acting as observers and evaluators. They’ll analyze the drill and have a report ready in about a month.
But in the case of a real oil spill, the goal would be not only to work well together, but to contain and remove the oil. Commander Mark O’Malley would be responsible for deciding who’s at fault, whether the company should be fined and how much, and the clean-up is effective.
O’MALLEY :15 if they weren’t taking appropriate response actions I as federal on-scene coordinator, I’d take over, step in and direct the actions. Which then they’d have to reimburse the gov’t and for spill damage. So it gets very expensive.

And when it comes to the real thing, the work wouldn’t be done in just a day. It’s hard manual labor and – just like the spill on Buzzards Bay – the clean-up could take several weeks.
For NHPR News, I’m RMD, on Little Bay, near Newington.