By Calvin Biesecker
The federal government on Friday 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 on Friday said that the IATAP and RDC will review and “triage” the white paper submissions “based on technical feasibility, efficacy and deployability.”
The federal response on its web site includes a phone number and email address for technology and other suggestions to contain the 45-day oil spill that resulted from an explosion that eventually sank the Deepwater Horizon oil rig 50 miles off the coast of Louisiana. A Deepwater Horizon Response spokesman told Defense Daily 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, they need more evaluation, or don’t support the incident.
Release of the BAA concides with the latest effort by BP Global [BP] to staunch the flow of oil from the pipe on the sea bed. The company late last night installed a containment cap on the leaking well to collect oil and steer it to a ship on the surface. The cap is collecting oil but vents in the cap are allowing some oil to escape by design. Once the vents are closed, which was expected some time on Friday, oil response officials will know if they are effectively containing the leak. The fix is only temporary and “we must continue our aggressive response operations at the source, on the surface and along the Gulf’s precious coast line,” Allen said in a statement on Thursday.
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. [The solicitation number for the BAA is HSCG32-10-R-R00019. Contact: [email protected], 860-271-2807.]