The federal government has released a Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) to collect white papers for potential technology solutions in response to the ongoing oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
The BAA was issued by the Coast Guard’s Research and Development Center (RDC) and the Interagency Alternative Technology Assessment Program (IATAP) workgroup, which is newly established by Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the National Incident Commander for the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
The Deepwater Horizon federal response team says that the IATAP and RDC will review and “triage” the white paper submissions “based on technical feasibility, efficacy and deployability.”
The Deepwater Horizon Unified Command, on its web site, includes a phone number and email address for technology and other suggestions to contain the 50-day oil spill that resulted from an explosion that eventually sand the Deepwater Horizon oil rig 50 miles off the coast of Louisiana. A Deepwater Horizon Response spokesman tells TR2 that the BAA represents a more formal and structured way to review and analyze suggestions to help with the oil spill.
The BAA seeks responses in five technology gap areas, which are:
- Oil Sensing Improvements to Response and Detection, such as tactical oil sensing and tracking, and submerged oil detection, tracking and reporting;
- Oil Wellhead Control and Submerged Oil Response, such as oil wellhead spill control, wellhead shutoff measures, submerged oil collection and submerged oil treatment;
- Traditional Oil Spill Response Technologies, such as booms, skimmers, surface collection techniques, absorbents, near- and on-shore response, innovative applications not commonly used for oil spill response, and disposal;
- Alternative Oil Spill Response Technologies, including in-situ burn, alternative chemical treatments, and other applications not typically used for oil response;
- Oil Spill Damage Assessment and Restoration, such as damage assessment techniques, tracking surface restoration technologies, and submerged restoration technologies.
The BAA will be open for a year. Submissions will be screened to determine if they offer an immediate benefit, if they need more evaluation, or don’t support the incident.
The lack of effective technology to immediately staunch the flow of oil is another demonstration of the technology gap the homeland security community has to address threats and challenges, David Howe, the CEO of the homeland security consulting firm Civitas Group, says at a conference last week sponsored by the Homeland Security & Defense Business Council.
Release of the BAA coincides with the latest effort by BP Global [BP] to staunch the flow of oil from the pipe on the sea floor. Last week the company installed a containment cap on the leaking well to collect oil and steer it to a ship on the surface. The cap is collecting more of the leaking oil each day but the exact percentages are unknown. Moreover, some oil is being allowed to escape by design through vents in the containment cap because more oil is being sent to a processing vessel than it can handle.
The spill has created an unforeseen environmental challenge with “hundreds of thousands of patches of oil” spreading over a vast area of the Gulf, Allen tells reporters at a White House briefing this week. About 1,500 vessels, most of them private, are being used in the skimming operations, he says.
Ultimately, the spill won’t be fully contained until BP is able to drill relief wells, Allen says. That will be in August at the earliest. As for the oil that has escaped and continues to do so, that will be around for many more months, he says.
Last week Allen said that “we must continue our aggressive response operations at the source, on the surface and along the Gulf’s precious coastline.”
The Coast Guard is the lead agency for the IATAP, which also includes the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Departments of Agriculture and Interior, the Minerals Management Service, and the Environmental Protection Agency. [Sol. No. HSCG32-10-R-R00019. Contact: [email protected], 860- 271-2807.]