Earth’s average surface temperature in 2023 was the warmest on record, according to an analysis by NASA. Global temperatures last year were around 2.1 degrees Fahrenheit (1.2 degrees Celsius) above the average for NASA’s baseline period (1951-1980), scientists from NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York reported.

“NASA and NOAA’s global temperature report confirms what billions of people around the world experienced last year; we are facing a climate crisis,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “From extreme heat, to wildfires, to rising sea levels, we can see our Earth is changing. There’s still more work to be done, but President Biden and communities across America are taking more action than ever to reduce climate risks and help communities become more resilient – and NASA will continue to use our vantage point of space to bring critical climate data back down to Earth that is understandable and accessible for all people. NASA and the Biden-Harris Administration are working to protect our home planet and its people, for this generation – and the next.”

In 2023, hundreds of millions of people around the world experienced extreme heat, and each month from June through December set a global record for the respective month. July was the hottest month ever recorded. Overall, Earth was about 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit (or about 1.4 degrees Celsius) warmer in 2023 than the late 19th-century average, when modern record-keeping began.

“The exceptional warming that we’re experiencing is not something we’ve seen before in human history,” said Gavin Schmidt, director of GISS. “It’s driven primarily by our fossil fuel emissions, and we’re seeing the impacts in heat waves, intense rainfall, and coastal flooding.”

Though scientists have conclusive evidence that the planet’s long-term warming trend is driven by human activity, they still examine other phenomena that can affect yearly or multi-year changes in climate such as El Niño, aerosols and pollution, and volcanic eruptions.

Typically, the largest source of year-to-year variability is the El Niño – Southern Oscillation ocean climate pattern in the Pacific Ocean. The pattern has two phases – El Niño and La Niña – when sea surface temperatures along the equator switch between warmer, average, and cooler temperatures. From 2020-2022, the Pacific Ocean saw three consecutive La Niña events, which tend to cool global temperatures. In May 2023, the ocean transitioned from La Niña to El Niño, which often coincides with the hottest years on record.

However, the record temperatures in the second half of 2023 occurred before the peak of the current El Niño event. Scientists expect to see the biggest impacts of El Niño in February, March, and April.

The post NASA Analysis Confirms 2023 as Warmest Year on Record first appeared on The Black Vault.

The 216-U-10 Pond, commonly referred to as the U Pond, was a part of the Hanford Site, which is a decommissioned nuclear production complex in the state of Washington, operated by the United States federal government. The Hanford Site was established during World War II as part of the Manhattan Project, and it played a crucial role in the production of plutonium for nuclear weapons. The 216-U-10 Pond was one of the many waste sites within the Hanford Site.

The U Pond was constructed in 1943 and was originally used as a settling basin for the U Plant, a uranium recovery facility at the Hanford Site. The pond received both liquid and solid waste from the U Plant, as well as from other facilities within the site. Over the years, the pond received a variety of waste materials, including radioactive isotopes, hazardous chemicals, and organic compounds.

The pond covers an area of approximately 3.7 acres and is located in the 200 West Area of the Hanford Site. It consists of a main pond and a series of adjacent trenches and ditches. The main pond is approximately 600 feet long, 300 feet wide, and 10 feet deep. The trenches and ditches were used for the disposal of solid waste, while the main pond was used for the disposal of liquid waste.

The disposal of waste into the U Pond continued until 1974 when it was officially closed. After its closure, the pond was covered with soil, and efforts were made to stabilize the site and prevent the migration of contaminants into the surrounding environment. However, due to the nature of the waste disposed of in the pond and the historical practices of waste management at the Hanford Site, there have been concerns about the potential for groundwater contamination and other environmental impacts.

Over the years, the U Pond has been the subject of various investigations and remediation efforts. The site has been monitored regularly to assess the levels of radioactivity and other contaminants in the soil, groundwater, and surface water. Various remediation options have been considered, including the removal of contaminated soil, the installation of barriers to contain the contaminants, and the treatment of contaminated groundwater.

The 216-U-10 Pond is one of many waste sites at the Hanford Site that are managed as part of the Hanford Site Cleanup Program. This program is overseen by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), with input from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Washington State Department of Ecology. The cleanup of the Hanford Site, including the 216-U-10 Pond, is a complex and ongoing process that is expected to take many years to complete.

Hanford has a public document release site at https://www.hanford.gov/ but below you will find documents not released to the public.

Document Archive

The 216-U-10 Pond [69 Pages, 2.5MB]

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The post The 216-U-10 Pond first appeared on The Black Vault.

This video was obtained from the The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). It was found in a list of videos, currently archived by that agency.

Video Archive

FOIA Response Letter

The post Is Our Climate Changing? The Situation, The Threat, The Challenge – 1991 Los Alamos Presentation by Charles ‘Chick’ Keller first appeared on The Black Vault.

The purpose of this bibliography is to provide a guide to Soviet publications on optical phenomena in the atmosphere. It is based mainly on publications available in the Library of Congress . Special consideration has been given to publications of the last five years [from 1960], but several earlier works have also been included.

Document Archive

Phenomena in the Atmosphere – Optical Phenomena, September 1960 [58 Pages, 23MB]

The post Phenomena in the Atmosphere – Optical Phenomena, September 1960 first appeared on The Black Vault.

The western world’s leading climatologists have confirmed recent reports of a detrimental global climatic change. The stability of most nations is based upon a dependable source of food, but this stability will not be possible under the new climatic era. A forecast by the University of Wisconsin projects that the earth’s climate is returning to that of the neo-boreal era (l600-18S0)-an era of drought, famine, and political unrest in the western world.

A responsibility of the Intelligence Community is to assess a nation’s capability and stability under varying internal or external pressures. The assessments normally include an analysis of the country’s social, economic, political, and military sectors. The implied economic and political intelligence issues resulting from climatic change range far beyond the traditional concept of intelligence. The analysis of these issues is based upon two key questions:

• Can the Agency depend on climatology as a science to accurately project the future?
• What knowledge and understanding is available about world food production and can the consequences of a large climatic change be assessed?

Document Archive

A Study of Climatological Research as it Pertains to Intelligence Problems, August 1974 [37 Pages, 13MB]

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The post A Study of Climatological Research as it Pertains to Intelligence Problems, August 1974 first appeared on The Black Vault.

An international effort that brought together more than 60 ice, ocean, and atmosphere scientists from three dozen international institutions has generated new estimates of how much of an impact Earth’s melting ice sheets could have on global sea levels by 2100. If greenhouse gas emissions continue apace, Greenland and Antarctica’s ice sheets could together contribute more than 15 inches (38 centimeters) of global sea level rise – and that’s beyond the amount that has already been set in motion by Earth’s warming climate.

Results from this effort are in line with projections in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) 2019 Special Report on Oceans and the Cryosphere. Meltwater from ice sheets contribute about a third of the total global sea level rise. The IPCC report projected that Greenland would contribute 3.1 to 10.6 inches (8 to 27 cm) to global sea level rise between 2000 and 2100 and Antarctica could contribute 1.2 to 11 inches (3 to 28 cm).

These new results, published this week in a special issue of the journal The Cryosphere, come from the Ice Sheet Model Intercomparison Project (ISMIP6) led by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The study is one of many efforts scientists are involved in projecting the impact of a warming climate on melting ice sheets, understanding its causes, and tracking sea level rise.

“One of the biggest uncertainties when it comes to how much sea level will rise in the future is how much the ice sheets will contribute,” said project leader and ice scientist Sophie Nowicki, now at the University at Buffalo and formerly at NASA Goddard. “And how much the ice sheets contribute is really dependent on what the climate will do.”

“The strength of ISMIP6 was to bring together most of the ice sheet modeling groups around the world, and then connect with other communities of ocean and atmospheric modelers as well, to better understand what could happen to the ice sheets,” said Heiko Goelzer, a scientist from Utrecht University in the Netherlands, now at NORCE Norwegian Research Centre in Norway. Goelzer led the Greenland ice sheet ISMIP6 effort.

With warming air temperatures melting the surface of the ice sheet and warming ocean temperatures causing ocean-terminating glaciers to retreat, Greenland’s ice sheet is a significant contributor to sea level rise. The ISMIP6 team investigated two different scenarios the IPCC has set for future climate to predict sea level rise between 2015 and 2100: one with carbon emissions increasing rapidly and another with lower emissions.

In the high emissions scenario, they found that the Greenland ice sheet would lead to an additional global sea level rise of about 3.5 inches (9 cm) by 2100. In the lower-emissions scenario, the loss from the ice sheet would raise global sea level by about 1.3 inches (3 cm). This is beyond what is already destined to be lost from the ice sheet due to warming temperatures between pre-industrial times and now; previous studies have estimated that “locked in” contribution to global sea level rise by 2100 to be about a quarter-inch (6 millimeters) for the Greenland ice sheet.

The ISMIP6 team also analyzed the Antarctic ice sheet to understand how much ice melt from future climate change would add to sea level rise, beyond what recent warming temperatures have already put in motion. Ice loss from the Antarctic ice sheet is more difficult to predict: In the west, warm ocean currents erode the bottom of large floating ice shelves, causing loss, while the vast East Antarctic ice sheet can gain mass, as warmer temperatures cause increased snowfall.

The results point to a greater range of possibilities, from ice sheet change that decreases sea level by 3.1 in (7.8 cm), to increasing it by 12 in (30 cm) by 2100, with different climate scenarios and climate model inputs. The regional projections show the greatest loss in West Antarctica, responsible for up to 7.1 in (18 cm) of sea level rise by 2100 in the warmest conditions, according to the research.

“The Amundsen Sea region in West Antarctica and Wilkes Land in East Antarctica are the two regions most sensitive to warming ocean temperatures and changing currents, and will continue to lose large amounts of ice,” said Hélène Seroussi, an ice scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. Seroussi led the Antarctic ice sheet modeling in the ISMIP6 effort. “With these new results, we can focus our efforts in the correct direction and know what needs to be worked on to continue improving the projections.”

Different groups within the ISMIP6 community are working on various aspects of the ice sheet modeling effort. All are designed to better understand why the ice sheets are changing and to improve estimates of how much ice sheets will contribute to sea level rise. Other recent ISMIP6 studies include:

• How historical conditions and warming ocean temperatures that melt floating ice shelves from below play a significant role in Antarctic ice loss? [Reese et al https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-3097-2020]
• How sudden and sustained collapse of the floating ice shelves impact the Antarctic ice sheet as a whole? [Sun et al. (2020), https://doi.org/10.1017/jog.2020.67]
• How to convert large scale climate output into local conditions that ice sheet models can use? [Barthel et al (2020) https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/14/855/2020/, Slater et al (2019, 2020) https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/14/985/2020/, Nowicki et al (2020) https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/14/2331/2020, and Jourdain et al https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-3111-2020]

“It took over six years of workshops and teleconferences with scientists from around the world working on ice sheet, atmosphere, and ocean modeling to build a community that was able to ultimately improve our sea level rise projections,” Nowicki said. “The reason it worked is because the polar community is small, and we’re all very keen on getting this problem of future sea level right. We need to know these numbers.”

The new results will help inform the Sixth IPCC report scheduled for release in 2022.

###

The post Emissions Could Add 15 Inches to 2100 Sea Level Rise, NASA-led Study Finds — September 17, 2020 first appeared on The Black Vault.

The COVID-19 pandemic changed the routines of millions of people around the world seemingly overnight. In some places, once-congested streets are now easily navigable; previously crammed sidewalks, eerily vacant.

Such widespread, rapid change in human activity is unprecedented and its effects on our planet and our lives are only just beginning to be realized. NASA’s Earth Science Division is supporting the science community as it investigates the many changes this unique situation has brought to light. Through its Rapid Response and Novel Research in Earth Science (RRNES) initiative, the agency is providing funding for selected, rapid-turnaround projects that make innovative use of satellite data and other NASA resources to address the different environmental, economic and societal impacts of the pandemic. NASA announced last month the first RRNES projects and is continuing to evaluate new project proposals.

The agency recently funded the following four RRNES projects:

Exploring Uneven Gains in Urban Air Quality

The drastic reduction of passenger vehicles on the roads has resulted in a drop in air pollution, particularly nitrogen dioxide (NO2), in many urban areas. However, according to Susan Anenberg and Dan Goldberg from George Washington University, initial analysis of satellite data indicates that the decrease in NO2 concentrations across cities globally during their lockdown periods has been inconsistent. Cities in China and Italy, for example, seem to show a much greater and more abrupt decline in this type of pollution than many cities in the U.S.

“Our project will link satellite remote sensing with weather, traffic counts, and other data to shed light on why we are seeing these inconsistent effects of COVID-19 lockdowns on air quality in different cities around the world,” said Goldberg.

Data like this can greatly benefit public health both as we navigate the current pandemic and in the future.

“Since air pollution may be a risk factor for increased severity of COVID-19 outcomes, accurate information about air pollution levels during the COVID-19 crisis is critical to protect public health,” Anenberg said. “Our project will also improve public health in the long-term by advancing our understanding of how transportation policies can be designed to improve air quality most effectively and efficiently.”

Impact of Air Pollution Reduction on the Atmosphere

Although satellites have observed a global decrease in some types of air pollution, including nitrogen dioxide, it remains to be seen how long the reduction in harmful emissions will last and what effects these changes will have on the chemistry of the atmosphere in the future. University at Buffalo scientist Kang Sun is developing a process that will give scientists and stakeholders a way to efficiently monitor both.

“Using a new data-driven framework that combines satellite and meteorological data, we will take NASA satellite assets one step further to quantify the reduction in emissions and its impact on air quality chemistry,” said Sun.

For now, he plans to focus his research on three regions, each at different phases of the pandemic and that have adhered to different regulations and policies in an effort to control it.

“We will focus on nitrogen oxides in the polluted regions of Jianghan Plain (which includes Wuhan) in China, Po Valley in Italy, and southern California in the U.S.,” he said. “However, the established framework can be quickly applied to other regions, time periods, and trace gases with rapid sharing of the results, algorithm, and data generated by this project.”

Air Pollution Links to Water Quality

What goes into our air can also impact other parts of the Earth system, like water quality. City University of New York scientists Maria Tzortziou and Brice Grunert are researching this connection to determine what impact the COVID-19-related declines in air pollution may have on coastal water quality in Long Island Sound, near New York City.

“Socioeconomic policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic have resulted in a dramatic decline in atmospheric nitrogen pollution across the globe. Yet, the impacts on atmospherically deposited nitrogen and resulting changes in coastal aquatic ecology remain unknown,” said Tzortziou.

In general, an overabundance of nitrogen and other chemicals and nutrients in the water can cause excessive algae growth. When the algae decompose, a process that consumes oxygen, the water is often left without enough oxygen to sustain life. In other words, these processes have a negative effect on water quality.

The reduction of atmospheric nitrogen pollution due to society’s response to the pandemic provides scientists with a unique opportunity to investigate air pollution’s influence on water quality.

“Using new measurements from ground-based and satellite platforms to capture changes in both atmospheric and water quality conditions, this project will help address a gap in our fundamental understanding of air-water exchange of nutrients and pollutants, and how this impacts and is impacted by environmental regulations, socioeconomic policy responses and decision making,” said Tzortziou.

Shedding (Night) Light on Pandemic Economic Impacts

In addition to environmental changes, measures to curb the spread of COVID-19 have led to a substantial shift in human activity and movement around the globe. A team of researchers led by Miguel Román, program director at Universities Space Research Association and a principal investigator of NASA’s Black Marble science team, is using satellite nighttime light data to help assess the social and economic impacts of this crisis locally to globally, and the effectiveness of containment actions, such as stay-at-home orders, taken to control the spread of the virus.

“Our research team has been analyzing images of Earth at night to decipher patterns of energy use, transportation, migration, and other economic and social activities,” Román said. “Currently, there are minimal data about how different containment strategies have affected local businesses and neighborhoods, and how companies and residents are responding to preventative measures aimed at containment.”

The research team will use NASA’s Black Marble – a product suite that provides daily satellite-derived nighttime light data – along with population, urban infrastructure, and local pandemic response information to develop COVID-19-specific maps and data products capable of tracking these responses from the street level to the global level in near-real-time.

“By tracking responses at fine spatial scales – at the sub-neighborhood level, for example – using NASA’s Black Marble product, we seek to improve understanding of how responses to containment strategies have varied within cities and across metropolitan areas with different levels of urbanization and regulation,” said Román.

This information can inform stakeholders responsible for monitoring the extent, duration, and recovery from this and future outbreaks and disasters.

Banner image: Empty streets in Los Angeles. Credit: Drew Tilk/Unsplash

The post NASA Funds Four Research Projects on COVID-19 Impacts, Published May 13, 2020 first appeared on The Black Vault.

According to the (archived) National Institute of Health (NIH) website and fact sheet on TOXMAP:

TOXMAP® is a Geographic Information System (GIS) from the National Library of Medicine (NLM) that uses maps of the United States to help users visually explore data from the EPA’s Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) and Superfund Programs.

Federal law requires facilities in certain industries, which manufacture, process, or use significant amounts of toxic chemicals, to report annually on their releases of these chemicals to the EPA TRI Program. Superfund sites are those throughout the United States and its territories which contain substances that are either designated as hazardous under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), or identified as such under other laws.

TOXMAP helps users create nationwide, regional, or local area maps showing where TRI chemicals are released on-site into the air, water, and ground. It also identifies the releasing facilities, color-codes release amounts for a single year or year range, and provides multi-year aggregate chemical release data and trends over time, starting with 1988. Maps can also show locations of Superfund sites on the National Priority List (NPL), listing all chemical contaminants present at these sites.

Two versions of TOXMAP are available: the classic version of TOXMAP released in 2004, and a version based on Adobe® Flash/Flex technology. In addition to many of the features of TOXMAP classic, this version provides an improved map appearance and interactive capabilities as well as a more current GIS look-and-feel. This includes seamless panning, immediate update of search results when zooming to a location, two collapsible side panels to maximize map size, and automatic size adjustment after a window resize. The new TOXMAP also has improved U.S. Census layers and availability by Census Tract (2000 and 2010), Canadian National Pollutant Release Inventory (NPRI) data, U.S. EPA coal plant emissions data, U.S. commercial nuclear power plants, and improved and updated congressional district boundaries. Both versions of TOXMAP can be accessed from https://toxmap.nlm.nih.gov.

TOXMAP classic users can search the system by location (such as city, state, or ZIP code), chemical name, chemical name fragment, release medium, release amount, facility name and ID, and can filter results to those residing within a pre-defined or custom geographic region. Search results can be saved for use in other tools, and can also be viewed in Google Maps® and Google Earth®. Both versions of TOXMAP also overlay map data such as U.S. Census population information, income figures from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and health data from the National Cancer Institute and the National Center for Health Statistics.

NLM has an extensive collection of toxicology and environmental health references (TOXLINE®), as well as a rich resource of data on hazardous chemical substances (HSDB®) in the TOXNET® databases. These resources are easily linked to/from the TOXMAP search results. The data shown in TOXMAP comes from:

• • EPA’s Toxics Release Inventory (TRI)
  • EPA’s Superfund Program/CERCLA
  • US Census
  • Hazardous Substances Data Bank (HSDB®)
  • TOXLINE® (Toxicology Bibliographic Information)
  • Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR)
  • NCI’s SEER*Stat Database
  • EPA’s Air Markets Program Data (AMPD)
  • National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS)
  • Environment Canada
  • Nuclear Regulatory Commission

TOXMAP is a project of the Specialized Information Services Division of the NLM and supports its mission of addressing toxicology and environmental health information needs.

The database was pulled from the internet by the Trump administration in December 2019. The NLM said in a statement that much of the information remained available from the original sources, and that thus the database could be removed; critics, such as the Environmental Data & Governance Initiative, suggested it was part of a larger effort on the part of the administration to obfuscate the detrimental results of the rollback of Obama-era environmental regulations.

Document Archive

Combined three .pdf files (NLM.pdf x 3)

NLM-Combined.pdf [2,490 Pages, 293MB] (Please note: Large file. Right click and download to hard drive for easier viewing.)

Released E-Mails with Attachments

Drafts In Progress – Extended NPA Deliverables (Email 1of2).msg

Hello all,

For your initial review, attached is in-progress version of 1 of the 2 deliverables the MITRE team has been working on. A second email will follow; file sizes are larger than usual.

• • NLM PfM Training v 0.7.pptx – 8 comprehensive modules from which tailored training can be designed and delivered for specific audiences

Though these files are very much draft and still being worked, we look forward to a discussion next week as to whether the information being provided ‘hits the mark’ and will meets users’ needs. I’ll send out an invite for Wednesday 5/22 3-4pm. In the meantime, please feel free to email over comments if you have a chance to review the documents at all prior to a meeting. They are both lengthy so require some time to absorb! The developer’s guide is written as a How-To manual so technical in presentation.

Best regards,

Beth

Attachments

NLM PfM Training v 0.7.pptx [7.5MB]

no subject.msg

(No body text)

Attachments

Charleston 11.04.19 PFB.pptx [80MB]

RE Minutes Leadership Meeting March 20 2019 Tracking Progress.msg

.msg file was damaged. On April 17, 2020, NIH sent screen shots as they could not get the .msg to open properly either. The screen shots are below.

SIS Website updates (Draft email to OCCS).msg

Dasith,

Thank you for joining our meeting this morning on the sunsetting of the SIS program. We covered a lot of material and are happy for your help in getting a lot of work executed quickly. Your input was helpful.

I have attached an updated mock-up of the main SIS homepage to reflect what we need done to alert users of changes taking place. Also included are a Word document with the language to be added to the pages and a zip file with the current/approved NLM logos for use on the banners.

We would like to see a couple of options for the banners (some in a box, shown in various colors, and in bold or italics). While it may not be possible to have the message shown exactly the same on each of the unique pages, we would like to keep the look as close as possible. I included all of the logos, as the style and color may need to vary based on the space and color of each page.

Since we need to have the pages updated and the changes made live on Monday, July 1^st, we need to move on this quickly. Please let me know if you have any questions before you get started.

Again, thank you for your help!

Best,

Grace

Attachments

scan0001.pdf [0.8MB]

SISSunsetWebLanguage_062519.docx [15kb]

SISSunsetWebLanguage_062519.docx [2.3MB]

The post TOXMAP: Environmental Health Maps first appeared on The Black Vault.

The United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS or FWS) is an agency of the federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior dedicated to the management of fish, wildlife, and natural habitats. The mission of the agency is “working with others to conserve, protect, and enhance fish, wildlife, plants and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people.”

Internally, they have a “intranet” site used only by their employees.

Below, you will find different sections of it, as released under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

Document Archive

    The Refuge Planning Toolbox – December 2017 Release Index [Directory Index]

The post The Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) Intranet Server first appeared on The Black Vault.

This instruction provides policy guidance concerning the nature and extent of Coast Guard hazardous chemical response activities. It describes the response functions that marine safety units shall carry out, subject to resource availability, and the training, equipment, staffing standards, and procedures associated with those functions.

Document Archive

 Policy Guidance for Response to Hazardous Chemical Releases, 12 March 1984 [229 Pages, 4.6MB]

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The post Policy Guidance for Response to Hazardous Chemical Releases, 12 March 1984 first appeared on The Black Vault.

The environmental literature recognizes the importance of involving multiple stakeholders in the environmental policy development process. Stakeholders include a diverse set of individuals and organizations-local citizens and community groups, consumers, environmental groups, industry; individual companies,
shareholders, all levels of government and tribes, etc. In turn, each of these will have various perspectives on environmental risk, priorities, costs and benefits, etc.

One area of environmental policy that has not received a lot of emphasis in the past is technology innovation. Because of this, there is limited information on how one of these key stakeholders, industry, views environmental research and technology innovation. This report summarizes information about the following:

• How research-intensive companies are rethinking investments in environmental technologies; where these companies are likely to invest, where they
  will not invest, and where opportunities for public-private sector partnerships are; and
• What federal policies the case-study companies would like to see to promote investments in environmental research and technology;

The work was sponsored by both the Environment and Technology Divisions of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. The information contained in this summary is based on a series of interviews with senior environmental research and technology managers and environmental, health, and safety personnel in four research-intensive companies. The complete report that presents more detail on the results and the case studies of the companies is Technology Forces at Work: Profiles of Environmental R&D at DuPont, Intel, Monsanto, and Xerox, MR-1068-0STP, 1999, by Susan Resetar with Beth Lachman, Robert Lempert, and Monica Pinto. The results of this study should be useful for federal, state, local, and tribal environmental and R&D policymakers and scientists; industrial managers and planners; and university researchers.

Originally created by Congress in 1991 as the Critical Technologies Institute and renamed in 1998, the Science and Technology Policy Institute is a federally funded research and development center sponsored by the National Science Foundation and managed by RAND. The institute’s mission is to help improve public policy by conducting objective, independent research and analysis on policy issues that involve science and technology.

Document Archive

 Technology Forces at Work. Profiles of Environmental Research and Development at Dupont, Intel, Monsanto, and Xerox, 1998 [24 Pages, 1.4MB]

https://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/environment/FOIA17-81.pdf

The post Technology Forces at Work. Profiles of Environmental Research and Development at DuPont, Intel, Monsanto, and Xerox, 1998 first appeared on The Black Vault.

As a Service and Department we must act decisively, recognizing that climate change threatens to exacerbate other existing pressures on the sustainability of our fish and wildlife resources. We must act boldly, without having all the answers, confident that we will learn and adapt as we go. And most importantly, we must act now, as if the future of fish and wildlife and people hangs in the balance — for indeed, all indications are that it does.

As a Service, we are committed to examining everything we do, every decision we make, and every dollar we spend through the lens of climate change, fully confident in our workforce to rise to this challenge and to lead from in front and from behind. We recognize their efforts that are already underway, and we look to our employees for their on the ground knowledge and expertise in focusing our energies and recalibrating our activities.

Our Strategic Plan acknowledges that no single organization or agency can address an environmental challenge of such global proportions without allying itself with others in partnerships across the nation and around the world. This document commits us to a philosophy of interdependent, collaborative conservation, rooted in our Climate Change Principles.

Our Strategic Plan’s primary purposes are to (1) lay out our vision for accomplishing our mission to “work with others to conserve, protect, and enhance fish, wildlife, and plants and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people” in the face of accelerating climate change; and (2) provide direction for our own organization and its employees, defining our role within the context of the Department of the Interior and the larger conservation community. In
this plan, we express our commitment to our vision through strategic goals and objectives that we believe must be accomplished to sustain fish and wildlife nationally and internationally.

In an appended 5-Year Action Plan for Implementing the Climate Change Strategic Plan, we identify specific actions that will lead to the accomplishment of
our goals and objectives.

The Report

 Rising to the Urgent Challenge Strategic Plan for Responding to Accelerating Climate Change, September 2010 [36 Pages, 1.8MB]

https://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/weather/climatechange/CCStrategicPlan.pdf

The post Rising to the Urgent Challenge Strategic Plan for Responding to Accelerating Climate Change, September 2010 first appeared on The Black Vault.

The following documents is a COMMISSIONER ACTION memo, labeled SECY-79-235 from Harold R. Denton, Director Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, dated April 2, 1979.

The purpose of the action report is listed as:

To advise the Commission of some decisions that will need to be made in the immediate future regarding the application of the Price Anderson Act to the Three Mile Island Unit 2 accident.

The Three Mile Island Unit 2 (TMI-2) reactor, near Middletown, Pa., partially melted down on March 28, 1979. This was the most serious accident in U.S. commercial nuclear power plant operating history, although its small radioactive releases had no detectable health effects on plant workers or the public. Its aftermath brought about sweeping changes involving emergency response planning, reactor operator training, human factors engineering, radiation protection, and many other areas of nuclear power plant operations. It also caused the NRC to tighten and heighten its regulatory oversight. All of these changes significantly enhanced U.S. reactor safety.

A combination of equipment malfunctions, design-related problems and worker errors led to TMI-2’s partial meltdown and very small off-site releases of radioactivity.

Document Archive

 SECY-79-235, April 2, 1979, Possible Determination of an Extraordinary Nuclear Occurrence at Three Mile Island Unit 2 [17 Pages, 0.7MB]

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The post Possible Determination of an Extraordinary Nuclear Occurrence at Three Mile Island Unit 2, April 2, 1979 first appeared on The Black Vault.

The AIAA convened a workshop to identify and quantify the key environmental issues that relate to the effects on the atmosphere of rocket testing and use, and to recommend actions to resolve the issues. Communities represented at the workshop included rocket propulsion engineers, environmental scientists, environmental regulatory agencies, and environmental action groups.

Based on careful evaluation of scientific studies performed in the U.S., Europe, and the Soviet Union, the workshop concluded that the effects of rocket propulsion on stratospheric ozone depletion, acid rain, toxicity, air quality, and global warming were minuscule compared to other anthropogenic impacts.
Nevertheless it was agreed that environmental concerns should become a major consideration in the design, development, and use of future rocket propulsion systems, and that every reasonable effort should be made to reduce undesirable environmental effects.

Also, both the data and the analytical models used to reach conclusions on the effects of rocket propulsion on the atmosphere need substantial improvement to attain satisfactory confidence levels. Further, it was agreed that due to the global nature of the issues the necessary research, formulation of standards and regulations, and efforts to reduce environmental effects be conducted on an international basis.

Specific research areas detailed by the workshop include improving atmospheric modeling, data gathering, and methods for monitoring environmental changes. These improvements should focus on heterogeneous and non-equilibrium chemistry, three-dimensional * I modeling, and full characterization of rocket exhaust plumes and  afterburning.

In addition to incorporating environmental considerations on an equal level with performance, cost, and reliability criteria from system conception to operation, potential avenues for consideration in future propulsion systems include formulation, testing, and demonstration of new and modified propellants, changing system operating parameters, modifying test facilities and protocols, and relocating test and launch facilities.

However, it is essential to conduct detailed analyses of the costs, the benefits, and the risks of implementing such actions to ensure that safety and reliability are not compromised, that economics receive proper consideration, and that the actions 4 taken do indeed reduce undesirable effects on the environment.

Declassified Document

 Atmospheric Effects of Chemical Rocket Propulsion, October 1991 [89 Pages, 5.5MB]

https://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/dtic/ADB191722.pdf

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DOD Instruction 4715.5 establishes policy and assigned responsibilities for managing environmental compliance to protect human health and safety outside the United States on installations under DoD control.

The following reports were released under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

DOD Instruction 4715.5 – Environmental Compliance at Installations Outside the United States

 DOD Instruction 4715.5 – Environmental Compliance at Installations Outside the United States, 1 November 2013 [24 Pages, 0.6MB]

Final Governing Standard Report Archive

 FINAL GOVERNING STANDARDS for Environmental Protection by United States Forces for the United Kingdom, 13 March 2013 [273 Pages, 5.9MB]

 FINAL GOVERNING STANDARDS for Environmental Protection by United States Forces for Portugal, February 2011 [338 Pages, 5.9MB]

 FINAL GOVERNING STANDARDS for Environmental Protection by United States Forces on Ascension Island, February 2010 [259 Pages, 19.1MB]

 FINAL GOVERNING STANDARDS for Environmental Protection for Republic of Turkey, July 2008 [214 Pages, 1.7MB]

 FINAL GOVERNING STANDARDS for Environmental Protection by United States Forces in Antigua, October 2003 [199 Pages, 0.8MB]

 FINAL GOVERNING STANDARDS for Environmental Protection by United States Forces in Greenland, 24 July 2003 [193 Pages, 1.1MB]

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“Climate Change” is a hotbed topic among politicians, scientists, environmentalists, and many every-day people that live on Planet Earth.  Are WE causing the change? Or is this a normal, scientific event that has no cause, but rather, is simply Mother Nature.

Below are records pertaining to climate change found throughout different agencies.

 Declassified Documents

 Two Degrees of Separation: Abrupt Climate Change and the Adverse Impact to US National Security, April 2009 [55 Pages, 0.9MB] – Scientific evidence indicates recent global climate trends which if remain unchanged or develop further could result in abrupt climate change. Abrupt climate change could result in serious environmental and social impacts. The most serious environmental impact would be the disruption of the natural processes which sustain, feed, and fuel people and nations. The disruption of these natural ecosystem processes could result in the scarcity and/or inaccessibility of vital natural resources like water, food, and energy supplies. Scarcity and/or inaccessibility of vital natural resources could create social and political turmoil and adversely impact regional stability and homeland security. As the US is the largest historical producer of carbon dioxide, the most prevalent of the greenhouse gases, it should reform and adopt policies to adapt to the effects and/or mitigate the onset of abrupt climate change. Failure to take action will leave the US vulnerable to the environmental, social, and political impacts of abrupt climate change and threaten national security and vital US interests.

 Should the U.S. Ratify the Kyoto Treaty? 27 March 2009 by Lieutenant Colonel Adrian C. Poné [30 Pages, 0.7MB] – Global warming is a serious issue but also a contentious one; perhaps the fate of the planet hinges on man’s ability to limit anthropogenic greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2), which to some, is causing an alarming rise in the earth’s temperature, with potentially catastrophic results. And yet to others, the global warming issue is a non-issue, the so-called global warming alarmism is really no cause for concern, and the investment in reducing CO2 is not worth the benefit. At the center of the debate is the Kyoto protocol, an international treaty which mandates reduction in CO2 emissions, primarily from industrial nations to pre-1990 levels. To date, the U.S. has not ratified Kyoto while over almost all the world’s countries, have. This paper will examine Kyoto and the impact of signing it. In doing so, this paper will discuss global warming, is it real, and is man causing it? This paper will explore many of the issues surrounding the global warming debate, the ramifications of ratifying Kyoto and the costs and benefits of adopting a “greener” society.

 How America Can Look Within to Achieve Energy Security and Reduce Global Warming, September 2008 [113 Pages, 5.3MB] – Making major gains in energy efficiency is one of the most economical and effective ways our nation can wean itself off its dependence on foreign oil and reduce its emissions of greenhouse gases. Transportation and buildings, which account for two thirds of American energy usage, consume far more than they need to, but even though there are many affordable energy efficient technologies that can save consumers money, market imperfections inhibit their adoption. To overcome the barriers, the federal government must adopt policies that will transform the investments into economic and societal benefit. And the federal government must invest in research and development programs that target energy efficiency. Energy efficiency is one of America’s great hidden energy reserves. We should begin tapping it now.

 Global Warming Could Have a Chilling Effect on the Military, October 2003 [9 Pages, 0.7MB] – Most debates and studies addressing potential climate change have focused on the buildup of industrial greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and a gradual increase in global temperatures. But this “slow ramp” climate change scenario ignores recent and rapidly advancing evidence that Earth’s climate repeatedly has become much colder, warmer, wetter, or drier-in time spans as short as three to 10 years. Earth’s climate system appears to have sensitive thresholds, the crossing of which shifts the system into different modes of operation and triggers rapid, non-linear, and not necessarily global changes. This new paradigm of abrupt climate change does not appear to be on the radar screens of military planners, who treat climate change as a long term, low-level threat, with mostly sociological, not national security, implications. But intense and abrupt climate changes could escalate environmental issues into unanticipated security threats, and could compromise an unprepared military. The global ocean circulation system, often called the Ocean Conveyor, can change rapidly and shift the distribution patterns of heat and rainfall over large areas of the globe. The North Atlantic region is particularly vulnerable to abrupt regional coolings linked to ocean circulation changes. Global warming and ocean circulation changes also threaten the Arctic Ocean’s sea ice cover. Beyond the abrupt climatic impacts, fundamental changes in ocean circulation also have immediate naval implications. Recent evidence suggests that the oceans already may be experiencing large-scale changes that could affect Earth’s climate. Military planners should begin to consider potential abrupt climate change scenarios and their impacts on national defense.

 JPRS Report, Environmental Issues, Japan: Response Strategies for Global Warming Studied, 12 June 1990 [134 Pages, 4.9MB] – This report contains the proceedings carried out between January and June 1989 by the subgroups of the Advisory Committee on Climate change whose aim was to assess the environmental impacts and to evaluate response strategies. This follows the first interim report submitted in November 1988 by the Advisory Committee on climate change. This volume contains summaries of the reports given by the members of the subgroups. Interest in the global warming effect has seen a soaring increase over the past year. However, a comprehensive and in-depth understanding of the problem is quite difficult to attain even among specialists within the field. Furthermore, the studies being conducted by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climatic Change) on the scientific aspects, environmental and socioeconomic impacts, and response strategies have not yet laid down any guidelines. Thus, with this background in view, these groups have conducted their own investigations on similar categories as is being considered by IPCC, in order to sort out the issues involved in the problem. Although this report was prepared with the intension of integrating all knowledge on the issue, it cannot be said to cover all views currently held both inside and outside of Japan. To cope with the global warming problem, considerations of more specific issues are needed. The present interim report, although not as comprehensive as desired, has been made public with the intention of providing a starting point in the assessment of our common and needed efforts which are necessary in order to assess and deal with the issue of global warming more effectively.

Department of the NAVY Records

 Global Climate Change Implications for the United States Navy, May 1990 [86 Pages, 7.56MB]

Military War College Theses

 Military Implications of Global Warming, 20 May 1999 [42 Pages, 1.3MB] – The 1998 National Security Strategy repeatedly cites global environmental issues as key to the long-term security of the United States. Similarly, U.S. environmental issues also have important global implications. This paper analyzes current U.S. Policy as it pertains to global warming and climate change. It discusses related economic factors and environmental concerns. It assesses current White House policy as it relates to the U.S. military. It reviews the Department of Defense strategy for energy conservation and reduction of greenhouse gases. Finally, it offers recommendations and options for military involvement to reduce global warming. Global warming and other environmental issues are important to the U.S. military. As the United States leadership in environmental matters encourages global stability, the U.S. military will be able to focus more on readiness and on military training and operations.

 Global-Warming: A National Security Issue, 13 Feb 2006 [22 Pages, 0.2MB] – The waters in the Canadian Arctic are quickly becoming free to navigate due to global warming. international shipping bombards the region, the United States and Canada must be ready to face the security implications that will arise. A failure to do so may leave an opening for another terrorist strike on American soil. We must also be prepared to protect our interests in the region. Focus on Arctic oil is becoming a reality as we move towards freeing ourselves from dependence on oil from the Middle East. Preparing for operations in the Arctic must begin with a strong and cooperative relationship with our Canadian neighbors. Differences must be settled quickly particularly the issue over the sovereignty of the Canadian archipelago. We must also understand the implications of operating in the north with respect to the indigenous population and the environment. The success of the operations in the north depends on proactive planning now is the time.

 Global Warming: Its Implications for US National Security Policy, 19 March 2009 [30 Pages, 0.4MB] – The approach to this topic will be to look at the science behind anthropogenic global warming. Is man largely responsible for causing global warming due to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, or is this climate change part of a natural cycle? Both sides of the issue will be addressed. This paper will then investigate the nexus between global warming and U.S. national security policy. It will address the challenges facing U.S. leaders and policy makers as they tackle the issue of global warming and its implications for U.S. policy. Finally it will conclude with recommendations for those leaders as the U.S. seeks to ameliorate the impact of global climate change, and thereby improve U.S. national security.

 National Security Implications of Global Warming Policy, March 2010 [29 Pages, 0.7MB] – Although numerous historical examples demonstrate how actual climate change has contributed to the rise and fall of powers, global warming, in and of itself, is not our nation’s greatest climate threat. Rather, the greatest climate threat to national security is the world’s perception of climate change and the resulting governmental and intergovernmental policies enacted to reduce the theorized anthropogenic greenhouse warming. As governments become convinced that global warming is universally bad and humans are the primary cause, political leaders may develop ill-advised policies restricting US access and use of global energy supplies, weaken the US economy, and unfairly advantage rising developing nations. These three actions could combine to threaten United States security by reducing our relative national power in comparison with rising nations. Rather than adopting multilateral policies aimed at reducing the carbon emissions of developed nations, the United States should continue to resist adopting Kyoto Protocol type policies to preserve our national wealth to better fund Homeland Defense and national security.

The post Global Warming / Climate Change first appeared on The Black Vault.

How Americans View World Population Issues [142 Pages, 4.9MB] – This report presents the results of a survey of Americans’ views about global demographic trends and issues in the context of U.S. international economic assistance. The survey was conducted in August- September 1998 by Belden Russonello & Stewart, a public-opinion research firm in Washington, D.C., in conjunction with Ronald Hinckley of Research/Strategy/Management, and coordinated by Sally Patterson of Wagner Associates Public Affalrs Consulting, Inc., a public-affairs consulting firm based in Washington, D.C., and New York, N.Y. The work was performed jointly for RAND, with funding from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and the Centre for Development and Population Activities (CEDPA). The survey explored public knowledge about world population facts and trends and public views on specific issues, such as U.S. international economic assistance, family planning, and abortion. This report should be of interest to anyone concerned with what the pub- lic knows and thinks about population-related issues.

World Population Shifts, Boom or Doom? [49 Pages, 1.52MB] – The structure of world population growth is changing. The world’s current population of roughly 6 billion is likely to grow by an additional billion people every 12 to 13 years. This average growth rate (1.4 percent) masks the fact that some parts of the world are growing much faster than others. Developed countries are growing at less than 0.3 percent per year, while the rest of the world is growing almost six times that fast. These demographic differences, as well as widening economic differences, between the developed and less- developed world are increasing the flow of people toward the developed world. How the developed world responds to these immigration pressures will largely determine whether such pressures become a precursor to boom or doom. This presentation examines population shifts in different parts of the world, their effects on the flow of people across borders, and potential responses by the developed world to growing immigration pressures.

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The following are documents relating to oil spills, cleanups, and different R&D efforts by the military, government and private organizations.  The hope is that scientists, researchers, investigators, clean-up crews, BP, or whomever else can use this as a research resource.

Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico which flowed unabated for three months in 2010, and may be continuing to leak.  Named the largest accidental marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry, its source was a sea-floor oil gusher resulting from the 20 April 2010 explosion of Deepwater Horizon in which 11 men died.  The Deepwater drilled on the BP-operated Macondo Prospect, block 252. The gushing wellhead was capped after 87 days, on 15 July 2010.  An estimated 53,000 barrels per day (8,400 m3/d) of crude oil spew into the Gulf, with a total discharge estimated at 4.9 million barrels (210,000,000 US gal; 780,000 m3).[3] The well was declared sealed on 19 September 2010.

Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill: Recent Activities and Ongoing Developments, CRS Report, January 31, 2013 [15 Pages, 0.4 MB] – In the wake of the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexicoon April 20, 2010, the federal government, state governments, and responsible parties faced anunprecedented challenge. An oil discharge continued for 84 days, resulting in the largest oil spillin U.S. waters—estimated at approximately 206 million gallons (4.9 million barrels).

Other Documents of Interest

Application of Laser Induced Fluorescence Implemented Through a Cone Penetrometer to Map the Distribution of an Oil Spill in the Subsurface. [5 Pages, 800KB] – Field monitoring at spill sites usually involves collection and analysis of ground water, soil gas, and/or core material. Applications for soil gas are limited to volatile contaminants in the vadose zone. Ground water assays are useful, but detect only contaminants associated with the aqueous phase. Total contamination of the subsurface, especially for petroleum hydrocarbons, is best measured by vertical profile core sampling and analyses.

Condensed USCG Oil Spill Response Health and Safety Plans. [103 Pages, 4MB] – This report contains three separate sections under one cover to serve as a ready-to-use set of Safety and Health Plans (SHP) by the US Coast Guard (USCG) in response to a release of oil or other petroleum product. This document is designed to be separable in the field to assist the Site Safety and Health Officer in preparing the necessary documentation in the shortest possible time. This, in turn, should allow spill response personnel to access the site in a more timely fashion to mitigate the release and to help minimize any subsequent environmental darnage. Part I of the document describes the USCG’s general safety and health plans. Part II helps lead the designated Site Safety and Health Officer through the task of Site Assessment and Characterization. Part III acts as the basis for Site-specific Safety and Health Plans as required by the OSHA standard promulgated under 29 CFR 1910.120. The forms provided in Part II are to be used for Site Assessment and Characterization to supplement the generic plans provided in Part III, which then may be made Incident and Site-specific.

Control of Oil Spills in High Speed Currents, A Technology Assessment. [134 Pages, 8.1MB] – A technology assessment has been conducted to analyze the threat of oil spills in fast currents. Technologies and methods for response were evaluated, and promising equipment and strategies were identified. Recommendations are made to pursue those methods, equipment, and training that show the most promise for improved oil spill response capabilities in currents from 1 to 6 knots. Recommendations include technology development, testing, and field demonstrations. In addition, regulations, guidelines and training requirements for the USCG and the oil spill response industry were reviewed to determine their adequacy for fast water response. Improvements are suggested to make these practices more useful. Containment and removal of oil spilled in rivers and coastal tidal regions, where currents exceed one knot, is very difficult because many skimmers and conventional booming methods are not effective in fast currents. Under fast water conditions, the oil must be skimmed as it goes by the recovery device, or the surface current containing the oil must be slowed down without causing entrainment within the skimmer or boom containment system. The benefits and liabilities of high-speed skimmers and specialized boom systems are reviewed for fast water conditions. Promising deflection strategies are shown. Alternate containment and diversion techniques, including pneumatic boom, horizontal air and water jets, plunging waterjets, diversion paravanes, and floating paddle wheels, are also analyzed.

Design, Construction, Test and Evaluation of a Frequency Scanning Radiometer tor Measuring Oil Slick Thickness. [141 Pages, 5MB] – Single frequency microwave radiometry has been used to detect and estimate oil slick thicknesses. Because only a single sampling point is used, estimates of oil thickness can become ambiguous. MIT Lincoln Laboratory proposed the concept of using a frequency scanning radiometer to sample multiple points across a frequency band, thus resolving the problem of ambiguities in oil thickness estimation. A laboratory-prototype FSR capable of scanning over Ka-band (26 -40GHz) was designed, built, and tested. The FSR was used in laboratory proof-of-principle testing to (1) measure uniform thickness oil layers under various ambient weather conditions (day, night, clear, cloudy, drizzle, and snow) and different oil types, and (2) measure the phenomenology of non-uniform thickness oil layers and emulsions. Comparisons of measured data sets with theoretical predictions demonstrated that the expected response of oil is consistent regardless of oil type or ambient weather condition. Comparisons of uniform oil layer measurements and non-uniform measurements with theoretical predictions indicate that the radiometric brightness temperature (TB) of the oil above that of water is a function of the percentage of that thickness of oil within the antenna field-of-view. Water/oil emulsions were measured and have a higher TB than a uniform layer of pure oil at the same thickness. Recommendations for FSR modifications and improvements, as well as future collection work are included.

Disposal of Oil Spill Cleanup Collections. [10 Pages, 400KB] – The occurrence of major oil spill incidents at sea has required the institution of cleanup operations for removal of resulting oil slicks from the seawater. One well established cleanup operation involves burning of the oil slick in place which often results in release of a significant amount of smoke into the atmosphere creating an air pollution problem. Where in-situ ignition and burning of the oil slick is not feasible, skimming of the oil slick by means of skimmer vessels has been resorted to. The skimmer vessels collect the oil from the oil slick locations with a significant amount of water, such as 9 gallons of water for each gallon of oil recovered. The containment tanks associated with such skimmer vessels are rapidly filled with volumetrically large oil and water collections having relatively small amounts of the oil requiring nevertheless frequent return to shore for off-loading thereby causing interruptions in the cleanup operation during which oil slick spreading occurs. Because of such cleanup interruption difficulty, oil combustion aboard the skimming vessel may be resorted to for a more rapid and continuous cleanup operation. However, such on-board combustion of the collected oil also involves considerable air pollution from in-situ discharge of gas combustion products.

Evaluation of Infrared Sensors for Oil Spill Response Operations. [75 Pages, 4MB] – During November 1994, the USCO conducted a field evaluation of several commercially available portable infrared (IR) sensors for their ability to detect oil on water at night. The evaluation was conducted over the natural oil seeps off the coast of Santa Barbara, CA. The portable sensors were operated from the open door of a Coast Guard HH-60J helicopter. Sensors evaluated included the Agema Thermovision 1000 and Texas Instruments LOCUSP operating in the long wave IR (LWIR) and the Cincinnati Electronics IRC-160ST and IRRIS-256ST operating in the medium wave IR (MWIR). The installed FLIR 2000 LWIR system provided a baseline reference of current CG IR capabilities. The LOCUSP was the only uncooled sensor evaluated.

Evaluation of Synthetic Aperture Radar for Oil-Spill Response [233 Pages, 12MB] – This report provides a detailed evaluation of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) as a potential technology improvement over the Coast Guard’s existing side-looking airborne radar (SLAR) for oil-spill surveillance applications. The U.S. Coast Guard Research and Development Center (R&D Center), Environmental Safety Branch, sponsored a joint experiment including the U.S. Coast Guard, Sandia National Laboratories, and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Hazardous Materials Division. Radar imaging missions were flown on six days over the coastal waters off Santa Barbara, CA, where there are constant natural seeps of oil. Both the Coast Guard SLAR and the Sandia National Laboratories SAR were employed to acquire simultaneous images of oil slicks and other natural sea surface features that impact oil-spill interpretation. Surface truth and other environmental data were also recorded during the experiment. The experiment data were processed at Sandia National Laboratories and delivered to the R&D Center on a PC-based computer workstation for analysis by experiment participants.

Evaluation of an Oil Spill Trajectory Model Using Satellite-tracked, Oil-Spill-Simulating Drifters [10 Pages, 675kb] – We deployed ninety-seven oil-spill-simulating drifters over the continental shelf of the northeastern Gulf of Mexico during five hydrographic surveys conducted from 1997 through 1999. Earlier, side-by- side comparisons with spilled crude petroleum on the ocean surface had demonstrated that these drifters moved on the ocean surface like consolidated oil slicks under light to moderate winds. (Under high winds, a surface oil spill tends to be entrained into the mixed layer and Ekman transported, unlike the drifters, which remain on the sea surface and move mostly downwind.) The drifters were then deployed in the Gulf of Mexico as nonpolluting oil-spill proxies to compare their movements against results from an oil-spill trajectory model. The drifter trajectories were compared statistically to trajectories generated by the Oil-Spill Risk Analysis (OSRA) model. The model uses a variation of the 3.5- percent rule to compute the drift due to local wind forcing and superposes the prevailing ocean current on this wind-induced drift to obtain the total velocity of an oil spill on the ocean surface. The input fields are the European Center for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF) winds and a data-assimilating hindcast of the ocean currents over the time the drifters were deployed. Scatter plots and linear regressions of the speeds and directions of simulated vs. modeled oil-spill drift show the extent to which they are different. Underlying these differences are the expected differences between the ocean current input field and the trajectories of satellite tracked, ?water-following? drifters deployed simultaneously with the oil-spill-simulating drifters. An earlier evaluation of the ECMWF winds showed better, but of course not perfect, agreement with meteorological buoys in the Gulf.

Floating Heavy Oil Recovery: Current State Analysis [29 Pages, 380KB] – Spills of heavy oils behave differently than lighter oils which affects recovery operations and costs. The oils are typically viscous and sticky in nature, and may require specialized equipment to effectively and efficiently contain and recover. Heavy oil spills have traditionally been infrequent in nature, but the trend of frequency is slowly increasing. This trend, coupled with their greater impact due to response difficulties has led to this review of the technologies and techniques used to contain and recover floating heavy oils. Technologies reviewed include pumps, containment strategies and equipment, skimmers, and storage with an emphasis on Coast Guard Vessel of Opportunity Spill Systems (VOSS) and Spilled Oil Response System (SORS). Research over the past five years has led to dramatic advances primarily in the pumping of heavy oils through the adaptation of steam/water injection systems on the inlet of pumps and annular water injection systems on the discharge end of pumps though some areas of investigation still exist. Additional advances have been made through the use of belt and brush adapters on weir skimmers commonly used by both the US and Canadian Coast Guards. Recent testing has demonstrated improvements in collection efficiencies which more than doubled the quantity of fluid being recovered while simultaneously reducing water up-take. These advances are helping to build heavy oil recovery capacity but target equipment areas still require additional development. Data gaps are identified and suggested areas of future research are summarized.

Harbor Oil Spill Removal/Recovery Systems. Phase 2. [15 Pages, 700kb]

Heavy Oil Detection (Prototypes) [74 Pages, 2MB] – Current methods for locating and recovering submerged oil spills are inadequate. Detection methods are often improvised on-scene, and recovery techniques are labor intensive and not always successful. The U.S. Coast Guard Research and Development Center has embarked on a multi-year project to develop a complete approach for dealing with spills of submerged oils. This report describes the assessment of detection techniques using sonar, laser fluorometry, real-time mass spectrometry, and in-situ fluorometry to locate oil sitting on the sea floor. Evaluation of four proof-of-concept devices was conducted at the Oil and Hazardous Material Simulated Environmental Test Tank (OHMSETT), now called The National Oil Spill Response Test Facility, in Leonardo, NJ, between November 2007 and February 2008. Further testing of two of these prototype devices, plus three additional detection systems, was conducted at OHMSETT in January 2009. This report contains the results of these tests and recommendations for Federal On-scene Coordinators when responding to spills of heavy oil (contained in Appendix E).

Investigation of a Multi-Sensor Method to Map Oil Spill Thickness [77 Pages, 2MB] – Presently, maritime oil spill response and pollution deterrence forces have no reliable means of mapping oil slick thickness volume from the air. This report describes a technology demonstration and preliminary evaluation of a multi-sensor method that might provide such a capability. During September 1996, the U.S. Coast Guard Research and Development Center and its contractor, TASC, worked with the M.I.T. Lincoln Laboratory and the U.S. Minerals Management Service to test a new multi-sensor concept for monitoring oil spills. The test was conducted at the OHMSETT National Oil Spill Response Test Facility in Leonardo, New Jersey. Data were collected with a prototype frequency scarning microwave radiometer (FSR) and a commercial thermal infrared (IR) imaging radiometer. The multi-sensor method used FSR- derived oil thickness estimates to calibrate the gray scale of infrared images, thereby providing a means of producing oil thickness maps and volume estimates over relatively large areas. The target set consisted of containment rings filled with various known thicknesses of several oils, including both crude and diesel.

Investigation of Self-Help Oil-Spill Response Techniques and Equipment [387 Pages, 13MB] – This document describes a study conducted of 45 self-help response techniques and equipment for oceangoing tankers and inland tank barges to assess their potential effectiveness. The results will be considered by the Coast Guard to determine whether response requirements can be better met with shore-based equipment or vessel carried equipment. This study considers only vessel carried self-help equipment and techniques. The approach to this study included: (1) assessing time-dependent oil outflow in the cases of collision and grounding of both tankers and barges, (2) identifying environmental constraints on self-help countermeasure operation, (3) identifying human factor issues, and (4) assessing each self-help countermeasure with respect to its potential for minimizing oil loss to the environment. Results from the time-dependent oil outflow, environmental limitations, and human factors requirements were input into a simulation model. To set a base line, the first simulation run represents the case without any form of sen-help being applied. From the runs made in this study, no self-help countermeasure emerges as clearly superior to the others. However, the results do suggest that a pumping solution in conjunction with some form of containment has the most promise in the near term. In addition, this study produced results that are important to future modeling efforts, including the fact that ground plugging has a significant effect on oil outflow in the case of grounding.

Investigation of Sinking Methods for Removal of Oil Pollution from Water Surfaces. Report no. 3. Tests and Evaluation of Oil Sinking Materials [145 Pages, 11MB] – The purpose of the program was to investigate materials that can be used in the cleanup of massive oil spills by sinking the oil. The program was divided into four phases as follows: Phase I, Survey of the State-of-the-Art (AD-725 617); Phase II, Development of Standard Test Procedures; Phase III, Tests of Sinking Materials; Phase IV, Tests Analysis and Conclusions. The report completes the program as funded and covers the results of Phases III and IV; it also recapitulates pertinent portions of Phases I and II. Twenty-three oil sinking materials, which had been located, were screened and tested. These materials were evaluated (Phase IV) as dry-application sinking agents for oil. Factors such as cost, availability, effectiveness in sinking and tetaining oil, and hazards to personnel and plant life were considered in making the evaluations.

Marine Oil Spills: Prevention Methods and Enforcement Tools [117 Pages, 4MB]

Methods of Monitoring the Persian Gulf Oil Spill Using Digital and Hardcopy Multiband Data [48 Pages, 2MB] – A quick response demonstration was performed during the Persian Gulf War that showed a capability to monitor the path of oil dumped into the bay near Kuwait City using commercial satellite imagery. Both manual and semi-automated methods of image analysis were performed on AVHRR and Landsat TM imagery. Estimates of the oil area coverage were obtained using conventional classification methods. A hardcopy generation and reproduction capability was also demonstrated. Persian Gulf, Oil Spill, AVHRR, Landsat TM, Euclidean Distance, Bayesian Discriminant, Classifiers, Hardcopy Processing.

Natural Resources Damage Assessment: Information on Study of Seabirds Killed by Exxon Valdez Oil Spill [29 Pages, 1MB] – The crude oil that spilled from the Exxon Valdez spread to more than 1,200 miles of Alaska coastline, including portions of national forests, parks, and wildlife refuges managed by the federal government. This coastline is rich in fish and wildlife, such as herring, salmon, sea otters, whales, bald eagles, and seabirds, and the spill killed large numbers of many wildlife species. Among the most conspicuous effects of the spill was the injury to sea- birds. Seabirds are vulnerable to oil spills because they spend much of their time foraging on the sea’s surface. When their plumage comes in contact with the oil, it loses buoyancy, causing many birds to drown. Birds that manage to avoid drowning may die from exposure (oiled feathers provide poor insulation) or from ingesting oil that they try to preen from their plumage. Following the oil spill, more than 36,000 dead seabirds were recovered, frozen, and kept in storage as evidence of the effects of the spill. According to federal officials, these dead birds probably represented only a small portion of the number actually killed. Other birds were thought to have sunk, decomposed, been scavenged by other animals, or in some other way become unrecoverable.

Oceanographic Observations and Theoretical Analysis of Oil Slicks During the Chevron Spill, March 1970 [113 Pages, 3MB] – The report discusses oceanographic observations near the Chevron spilling well off the Mississippi Delta in March 1970 and relative roles of various physical factors of the regional estuarine system in the behavior of oil slicks.

Oil/Water Separator Test And Evaluation. [278 Pages, 12MB] – Four oil/water separators were tested in 1992 in a project jointly sponsored by the U.S. Coast Guard R&D Center and the Marine Spill Response Corporation. The objective of the test program was to evaluate the performance of oil/water separators under a variety of conditions that replicated operating conditions expected during an offshore oil spill recovery operation. The separators tested were the Alfa-Laval OFPX 413 disk-stack centrifuge. Conoco Specialty Products’ Vortoil Oilspill Separation System, International Separation Technology’s Intr-Septor 250 and a simple gravity tank. Separation performance was documented for a range of influent oil/water ratios, using crude and a water-in-oil emulsion. Simulated sea motion, the addition of emulsion breaker, and debris in the influent were other variables included in the test program. Observations on separator operability, reliability, maintenance requirements, safety and transportability also were documented. Complete test results and analysis are included in the report. Recommended system improvements, based on manufacturers’ input and performance analysis also are included. Test methods and parameters are fully documented in the report.

Oil and Hydrocarbon Spill Bioremediation Product and Application Technology [111 Pages, 5MB] – This manuscript was prepared for use by U.S. Navy personnel to increase the awareness of the use of microbes and related technology associated in the remediation of hydrocarbon spills. Petroleum products are vastly used in every day naval operations, and spills will inevitable. In researching the information and obtaining data from U.S. Navy commands, it quickly became obvious that the operational Navy knew little of this information and was not using bioremediation as a possible remedial technology. It is intent of this manuscript to be used as a guide to assist and educate naval planners in understanding the role of bioremediation for site cleanup. As defense dollars shrink and the technology grows, bioremediation will become an attractive, economical means for the Navy’s environmental problems. Thus, knowledge of the technology is important so as to not be mislead by marketing experts with widely exaggerated claims of performance. The technology works well in most cases, yet problems can exist that must be questioned

Oil Spill Response in Fast Currents. A Field Guide [122 Pages, 27MB] – From 1992 to 1996, over 58 percent of oil spills larger than 100 gallons have occurred in waters that routinely exceed one knot. Efforts to quickly deploy effective fast-water spill response have been hampered by the lack of technology and adequate training. The objective of this guide is to serve as a training aid and a field manual to increase the effectiveness of fast-water responses. It was developed with the cooperation of multiple government agencies, U.S. Coast Guard units and commercial spill response firms. This document starts with a decision guide to determine what techniques can be used in various spill response scenarios. Additional details are provided for hydrodynamic issues, individual tactics, fastwater skimmers and support equipment such as boats and anchors. The appendices provide additional background information needed to make decisions during a response in fast-water conditions. This guide is designed to be useful for responders as well as those who monitor responses. Whenever possible, figures are accompanied by pictures to provide a full explanation of each tactic or methodology.

Oil Spill Response Offshore, In-Situ Burn Operations Manual [155 Pages, 7MB] – In-situ burning (ISB) of oil in the marine environment is a viable alternative response technology, but it has been seldom used during actual responses due to lack of resources, incomplete plans, and health and safety concems. The USCG recognized the need to develop an ISB operations manual to facilitate the effective use of ISB by spill response managers. The intent of the manual is to assist field personnel in managing, conducting, and monitoring successful ISB and to communicate the risks and benefits of this response method. Development of the manual was based on proven technologies, approaches, and lessons learned from several recent field exercises conducted by the USCG, and years of field experience and testing. The manual makes extensive use of graphics, nornographs, photos, decision trees, checklists, matrices, and to-the-point advice. The manual includes a summary Decision Guide for quick reference of key steps in making a go/no-go decision, and in assessing the information, equipment, and personnel requirements. Detailed descriptions of the feasibility of ISB for a given situation, the equipment involved in a successful burn, safety and risk factors including mitigating measures, and operational procedures are provided to support decision-making and operations.

Oil Spill Response Technology Initiation Decision Report to the Pollution Abatement Ashore Program [139 Pages, 900KB] – This Initiation Decision Report (IDR) describes a review and prioritization of potential technologies that could be used to reduce response costs and environmental damage from accidental spills of oil into the aquatic environment. The report was requested by the Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFAC) Pollution Abatement Ashore (PAA) Program in response to a need submitted by the Navy oil spill user community to improve the management of oil spill response by more quickly detecting and responding to spills on water (PAA Need N-0404-06). This report evaluated technologies within six broad categories: Prevent, Sense, Assess, Coordinate, Recover, and Support. Navy On-Scene Coordinators (NOSCs) initially identified candidate technologies through the PAA Need Identification process. SPAWAR Systems Center San Diego (SSC San Diego) technologists identified additional technologies through direct solicitation for NOSC input and indirectly through conversations with NOSCs, other Navy responders, and spill contractors who were contacted during spill drills, exercises, and conferences, and after reviewing recent literature and the Internet. Technology ideas were compiled into a matrix that was sent out to each of the regional NOSCs so they could prioritize them in meeting their needs. The IDR provides a list of prioritized recommendations based on NOSC input, their needs rankings, and an initial assessment of feasibility and implementation.

Oil Spill Risk Assessment Model and the Ranking of Ports for Oil Spill Vulnerability. [106 Pages, 4MB] – The U.S. Coast Guard’s Marine Safety Office (MSO) of each port is required to develop contingency plans to respond to oil spills. The contingency plans at present do not use rigorous risk assessment procedures to identify the spectrum of spills that are possible in each port and estimate the frequency of occurrence of different size spills. In order to provide these procedures, there was a need to develop, for use in contingency planning, a uniform guidance methodology based on risk assessment principles. The development of port specific oil spill risk assessment methodology is described in this report. The port model takes into consideration the specifics of the water body in the port, vessel traffic, current or projected oil transport volume into the port per year, size distribution of vessels, as well as the size distribution of the oil carrying vessels (tankers and barges), weather and channel characteristics, etc. The model uses the accident risk factors for a number of U.S. ports developed in the Ports Need (Vessel Traffic Services Benefit) Study and takes into account the reduction in the vessel accident rate due to the provision of vessel traffic management systems. The output from the risk model is a histogram of the frequency of accidents vs the size of potential spill volume. A PC based computer program (‘OlLRlSK’) has also been developed to calculate the risk for any port. Using the results, the spill risks in different ports can be compared and the ports ranked based on the susceptibity to small, medium and large spills. The oil spill risk for a number of major U.S. ports has been calculated and presented.

Puget Sound 1999 Area Oil Spill Exercise: Evaluation Report. [66 Pages, 2MB] – This report serves as the Navy’s formal evaluation for the 1999 Pugent Sound Area Oil Spill Exercise. The report includes exercise results, lessons learned, and recommendations. The basic aim of the exercise was to improve the Navy’s ability to interface with the local response community in the effort to organize and respond to a worst-case oil spill and to test the response strategies set forth in the region’s Area Contingency Plan and Geographic Response Plans. The report examine both the success of the exercise in meeting its fundamental goals and the success of the spill response.

Second Phase Evaluation of a Protocol for Testing a Fire Resistant Oil Spill Containment Boom [68 Pages, 3MB] – A second series of fire tests utilizing the American Standard for Testing Materials (ASTM) F-20 draft, Standard Guide for In-Situ Burning of Oil Spills on Water: Fire-Resistant Containment Boom, as a guideline were conducted in a wave tank at the U.S. Coast Guard Fire and Safety Test Detachment in Mobile, Alabama, during August-September 1998. The test series used six different fire-resistant oil spill containment booms, including two water-cooled designs. Three of the booms used in the evaluation were modified designs of booms used in the first series conducted in 1997. A 15-meter section of each boom was formed in a circle and subjected to a diesel fuel fire, for up to three hours, while waves were produced. Testing issues, such as the boom constraint system, the location of the heat flux gauges and thermocouples, and special procedures for water-cooled booms, were addressed. The results of the second test series are presented, and the strengths and weaknesses of the protocol are discussed, along with areas for possible improvement.

Spill Prevention and Countermeasures Plan [137 Pages, 5MB] – The purposes of the spill prevention control and countermeasure plan (SPCC) is to prevent and control the discharge of oil and hazardous substances at RMA. The SPCC plan identifies potential sources of oil and hazardous substances and the measures required to prevent accidental discharge resulting from equipment or storage facility failure. In the event that a spill occurs, the SPCC plan identified the means to control, contain and cleanup the discharge. The SPCC plan is directed by the U.S. EPA regulations and the U.S. Army regulations. The SPCC plan for RMA is organized as follows: project background is provided, detailed descriptions of the individual tanks are provided, The installation spill contingency (ISC) plan is presented, the security at each of the tank areas is discussed, a description is provided of the types of training procedures for RMA personnel, and reporting requirements are presented, including the regulatory agencies which need to be contacted if an accidental spill occurs.

Spill Prevention Guidance Document [370 Pages, 16MB] – This manual guides Navy areas in developing and implementing their Spill Prevention, Control, and Countermeasure plan (SPCC Plan) for oil and hazardous substances (HS). This document is required by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Part 40 of the Code of Federal Regulation, Section 112 (20 CFR 112), the Oil Pollution Prevention regulation, and OPNAVINST 5090.1B, for oil area meeting the criteria in 40 CFR 112. Spill control measures are required for hazardous waste (HW) storage areas regulated by either 40 CFR 264 or 40 CFR 265. Additionally, some spill control measures are required for underground storage tanks (UST) regulated by 40 CFR 280. HW storage areas, not specifically regulated by the above referenced regulations, do not have regulated spill control requirements; however, it is considered best engineering practice to have spill control measures at all HS storage areas. Therefore, it is recommended that all HS storage areas be included in Navy SPCC plans. For overseas locations please refer to OEBGD/FGS criteria for spill prevention guidance.

Spill Response System Configuration Study. [44 Pages, 2MB] – This report describes the development of a prototype decision support system for oil spill response configuration planning that will help U.S. Coast Guard planners to determine the appropriate response equipment and personnel for major spills. The report discusses the application of advanced artificial intelligence planning techniques, as well as other software tools for spill trajectory modeling, plan evaluation and map display. The implementation of the prototype system is discussed in the context of two specific major spill scenarios in the San Francisco Bay.

Spinning Filter Separation System for Oil Spill Clean-Up Operation [11 Pages, 550KB] – According to current technology, effective clean up of oil spills from the surface of ocean water is performed by an oil sweeper vessel within which oil contaminated water is collected for transport to remotely located on-shore equipment within which oil separation and disposal is performed. The processing of large quantities of oil polluted ocean water is accordingly time consuming as well as costly. It is therefore an important object of the present invention to provide a less costly oil spill clean up system involving more rapid processing of large quantities of oil polluted ocean water. In accordance with the present invention, oil polluted ocean water is processed at an oil spill location by continuous separation during pressurized flow of the water through at least two separator devices within which successive reduction in oil concentration is effected with respect to a separated portion of the water by filtered flow through porous membrane walls to correspondingly increase the oil concentration within the other remaining portion of water being processed. The first portion of the processed water when sufficiently reduced in oil concentration is discharged for return to the oil spill location, while the remaining portion is collected until a sufficient level of oil concentration therein is achieved to permit disposal thereof by burning at the oil spill site.

Test and Evaluation of Oil/Water Separators: Intr-Septor 250 and FRAMO ‘Skimmer Separator’ [31 Pages, 2MB] – This report presents the results of testing two candidate Oil/Water Separator (OWS) units. The tests were planned and directed by the Naval Facilities Engineering Service Center (NFESC) at Port Hueneme, California, under joint sponsorship and funding from the United States Coast Guard Research and Development Center and the Marine Spill Response Corporation. The ‘Intr-Septor 250’ was a repeat performer, having been modified as a result of similar tests conducted by the Navy in 1992. The second candidate, the FRAMO ‘Skimmer Separator,’ arrived as a prototype machine, having recently been assembled and put through shakedown tests by the manufacturer. Each unit was subjected to a comprehensive sequence of tests that included the processing of various percentages of test oil in water and oil/water emulsion in free water (with and without emulsion breaker). In addition, tests that included the passage of entrained debris were completed to establish a baseline for performance under conditions conducive to clogging the OWS. In summary, although each machine was successful in effectively separating oil from water at particular inlet conditions, each recorded operational ‘hiccups’ while performing over the full range of input characteristics that would be anticipated during an actual marine spill. The most significant deficiency was the inability to operate effectively and reliably through wide variations in percentage of waste oil and emulsion composition, and to handle ingested debris materials. In particular, the processing of heavy emulsions and slugs of particle debris appears to ‘gum up’ the inner workings to such a degree that partial disassembly and cleaning of small orifices was required in order to get the OWS back on line.

Tracking the Weathering of an Oil Spill with Comprehensive Two-Dimensional Gas Chromatography [13 Pages, 2MB] – Comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography (GC x GC)was used to investigate the Bouchard 120 oil spill. The latter occurred on April 25, 2003, when the barge Bouchard 120 spilled 375,000 liters of No. 6 fuel oil into Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts. In order to gain a better understanding of the natural processes affecting the fate of the spilled product, we collected and analyzed oil-covered rocks from Nyes Neck beach in North Falmouth, Massachusetts. Here we discuss the data from samples collected on May 9, 2003, and six months later, on November 23, 2003. Along with standard two-dimensional gas chromatographic analysis, we employed unique data-visualization techniques such as difference, ratio, and addition chromatograms to highlight how evaporation, water washing, and biodegradation weathered the spilled oil. These approaches provide a new perspective to studying oil spills and aid attempts to remediate them.

Training Marine Oil Spill Response Workers Under OSHA’s Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response Standard [35 Pages, 300KB] – This booklet, written for marine oil spill response employers, describes the training your employees need under HAZWOPER, the Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response standard, Title 29 of Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) 1910.120. The Occupational safety and Health Administration (OSHA) published HAZWOPER to protect workers involved in hazardous substance emergency response and cleanup operations. Not every spill response worker needs the same amount of training. The type of training you give your workers depends on how close they will be to a spill and what role they will have in stopping, containing, or recovering the spilled material from the release. For example, if you have workers who control an oil spill early in an incident, they need more training than workers who simply warn others about a spill. This booklet explains how HAZWOPER training requirements apply to the range of workers who participate in marine soil spill response. To use this guidance effectively, you need to know the duties you expect your workers to perform and exposure conditions under which you would allow them to work. You must train your workers to the highest level of skill, responsibility, and exposure that you will assign them.

U.S. Coast Guard Oil Spill Response Research & Development Program, A Decade of Achievement [79 Pages, 4.1MB] – This report provides a comprehensive summary of the Coast Guard oil spill response R&D program undertaken during the period 1990 through 2001 following the EXXON VALDEZ oil spill and in response to the R&D provisions of OPA 90. During this period, the Coast Guard R&D efforts addressed four main focus areas: Spill Response Planning and Management, Spill Detection and Surveillance, Vessel Salvage and On-Board Containment, and Spilled Oil Cleanup and Countermeasures. The specific projects undertaken in each focus area are described, and the longer-term benefits of these projects in enhancing Coast Guard response capability are summarized. Coast Guard R&D contributions in developing oil spill R&D infrastructure, supporting oil spill technology research at universities, and facilitating technology transfer and promoting public awareness are also discussed. In addition, ‘representative quantitative estimates’ are calculated for the potential cost savings that resulted from advances in specific technology focus areas to show the relative ‘return on investment’ for the program.

A Study of the Behavior of Oil Spills in the Arctic [60 Pages, 1MB] – A program to investigate the behavior of oil spills in the Arctic was conducted off the northern coast of Alaska. Numerous small oil spills were made to obtain data on the following subjects: the spreading behavior of crude oil on ice and water surfaces; the interaction characteristics of crude oil with ice; the aging characteristics of crude oil which has been spilled on ice, on water, and under ice; and the effectiveness of burning and adsorption as methods of removal. Both Prudhoe Bay (‘Sag’ River) crude oil and diesel fuel were used in the test program. Results quantify spreading and interaction characteristics in addition to presenting qualitative information on each area of interest. Promise is shown for both burning and absorption as methods of oil removal in the summer. Data is presented on both the physical and chemical characteristics of aged crude oil.

Vulnerability Model. A Simulation System for Assessing Damage Resulting from Marine Spills [355 Pages, 15MB] – The Vulnerability Model (VM) is a computerized simulation system for assessing damage that results from marine spills of hazardous materials; the final report, summarized here, describes the research background, computational techniques, and preliminary test results associated with the first stage of development of the VM. This first stage of model development consisted of the design and implementation of an operational computer simulation, thereby demonstrating the feasibility of the philosophy, concepts, and approaches pertaining to the VM. Certain aspects of the modeling, as now operational, are subject to enhancement by augmentation, increase in precision, or both. Ultimately, the model is intended to be a comprehensive tool for assessing damage resulting from marine spills.

The West Falmouth Oil Spill [59 Pages, 2MB]

The post Oil Spills first appeared on The Black Vault.

Excerpt from the August, 1974, CIA report, entitled: Potential Implications of Trends in World Population, Food Production, and Climate.  Full document is available below.

“The widespread crop shortfalls in 1972 and the energy and fertilizer crunches in ’73 and ’74 have
raised anew the basic question of whether the production of food can keep pace with demand over the next few decades. Concern about the capability of many of the poorer countries to provide for their growing population is widespread and rising. Major international conferences planned for the second half of this year–i.e., the World Population Conference in August and the World Food Conference in November– will focus on various aspects of this question.

There is moreover, growing consensus among leading climatologists that the world is undergoing a cooling trend. If it continues, as feared, it could restrict production in both the USSR and China among other states, and could have an enormous impact, not only on the food-population balance, but also on the world balance of power.

This paper briefly reviews present trends and projections for world population and food production under assumptions of “normal” weather, and then essays a necessarily tentative exploration of the ramifications of a cooling climate. A final section address the political and other implications for the US of its potential role as the main food exporter in an increasingly hungry world.”

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Potential Implications of Trends in World Population, Food Production, and Climate, August 1974 [60 Pages, 8.98MB]

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The post Potential Implications of Trends in World Population, Food Production, and Climate first appeared on The Black Vault.