A Slick Response?
An oil spill the size of the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is not likely to happen in our waters. Still, the state has a plan—just in case.
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For a large spill, the state emergency response team would be summoned, usually by the fire chief whose company responded to the initial call from 911, Turner says. From there, the fire chief on the scene would take charge and decide what other teams would be needed.
“The process is pretty in-depth,” says Turner. There are procedures in place for everything from who responds to who pays to how to rotate people in and out of the scene. A large emergency takes accountants, as well as workers in the affected areas. “Surprises are only good on birthdays and Christmas,” Turner says—not at the scene of an emergency.
The director of DEMA is also charged with updating the governor if a state of emergency needs to be declared to release responders who otherwise wouldn’t be called, such as National Guard members.
All calls of spills in the waterways go to the Coast Guard, which determines if the Maritime All Hazard Response Team should be dispatched. As a result of the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, a fund was established so a cleanup can begin right away, without first having to determine who will pay for it.
That is good news for Delaware, because a large spill spreading through the river and bay could affect the larger Delaware Estuary if not controlled quickly. Wind, tides and currents could carry a spill through the bay, into the ocean and down the beaches of Delaware south past the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay.
Oil-covered birds would be the first thing people would notice, says Dr. Jonathan Sharp, professor of oceanography at the College of Earth, Ocean and Environment of the University of Delaware in Lewes. Pea Patch Island off Delaware City and Cape Henlopen, for example, are homes to a great numbers of birds, and they are major resting and feeding areas for migratory fowl—some of them endangered species. Oil can be devastating to their habitat.
The more subtle impact would be to the ecosystem overall. No one is sure how bad it could be—the fund for restoring an ecosystem after a spill doesn’t pay for a baseline cataloging of the area before a spill, which makes it hard to determine exactly how bad the effect is, Sharp says.
How the oil is cleaned up can sometimes have as bad an effect as the spill itself, he says. If there is no possibility of oil polluting coastal regions or marine industries, leaving the oil alone is the option, according to a report by the University of Delaware in 2004. “Nature will clean it up,” Sharp says. “It just takes a long time sometimes.”
If, however, spilled oil is headed toward shore, the most common method of cleaning is soaking and scooping. Crews put down booms—floating material that contains the slick and soaks up the oil—then use skimmer boats to scoop up the oil. Booms are stored near the most sensitive areas, as determined by the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, ready to be deployed immediately. Soaking and scooping is not, however, very effective in high winds and high seas.
Page 3: A Slick Response?