THE OIL SPILL RECOVERY INSTITUTE
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS
THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS
Washington, D.C. www.nap.edu
THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS
500 Fifth Street, N.W. Washington, DC 20001
NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The members of the committee responsible for the report were chosen for their special competences and with regard for appropriate balance.
This study was supported by Contract/Grant No. 01-01-23 between the National Academy of Sciences and the Oil Spill Recovery Institute. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the organizations or agencies that provided support for the project.
International Standard Book Number: 0-309-08514-4
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Cover: Photo of the Prince William Sound in Alaska. Photo courtesy of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council. Design by Michele de la Menardiere of the National Academies Press.
Copyright 2003 by the National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES
Advisers to the Nation on Science, Engineering, and Medicine
The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit, self-perpetuating society of distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research, dedicated to the furtherance of science and technology and to their use for the general welfare. Upon the authority of the charter granted to it by the Congress in 1863, the Academy has a mandate that requires it to advise the federal government on scientific and technical matters. Dr. Bruce M. Alberts is president of the National Academy of Sciences.
The National Academy of Engineering was established in 1964, under the charter of the National Academy of Sciences, as a parallel organization of outstanding engineers. It is autonomous in its administration and in the selection of its members, sharing with the National Academy of Sciences the responsibility for advising the federal government. The National Academy of Engineering also sponsors engineering programs aimed at meeting national needs, encourages education and research, and recognizes the superior achievements of engineers. Dr. Wm. A. Wulf is president of the National Academy of Engineering.
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COMMITTEE TO REVIEW THE OIL SPILL RECOVERY INSTITUTE’S RESEARCH PROGRAM
MAHLON C. KENNICUTT, II, Chair,
Texas A&M University, College Station
BRENDA BALLACHEY,
U.S. Geological Survey, Anchorage, Alaska
JOAN BRADDOCK,
University of Alaska, Fairbanks
AKHIL DATTA-GUPTA,
Texas A&M University, College Station
DEBORAH FRENCH MCCAY,
Applied Science Associates, Naragansett, Rhode Island
JERRY NEFF,
Battelle Memorial Institute, Duxbury, Massachusetts
JAMES PAYNE,
Payne Environmental Consultants, Inc., Encinitas, California
JAMES RAY,
Shell Global Solutions, Inc., Houston, Texas
WILLIAM SACKINGER,
OBELISK Hydrocarbons, Ltd., Fairbanks, Alaska
Staff
CHRIS ELFRING, Director,
Polar Research Board
DAN WALKER, Senior Staff Officer,
Ocean Studies Board
ANN CARLISLE, Administrative Associate
POLAR RESEARCH BOARD
ROBIN BELL,
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Palisades, New York
MARY ALBERT,
Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, Hanover, New Hampshire
RICHARD B. ALLEY,
Pennsylvania State University, University Park
AKHIL DATTA-GUPTA,
Texas A&M University, College Station
GEORGE DENTON,
University of Maine, Orono
HENRY P. HUNTINGTON,
Huntington Consulting, Eagle River, Alaska
DAVID KARL,
University of Hawaii, Manoa
MAHLON C. KENNICUTT, II,
Texas A&M University, College Station (ex-officio)
AMANDA LYNCH,
University of Colorado, Boulder
W. BERRY LYONS,
Byrd Polar Research Center, Columbus, Ohio
ROBIE MACDONALD,
Fisheries and Oceans, Canada, Institute of Ocean Sciences, British Columbia
MILES MCPHEE,
McPhee Research Company, Naches, Washington
ROBERT RUTFORD,
University of Texas, Dallas (ex-officio)
CAROLE L. SEYFRIT,
Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia
PATRICK WEBBER,
Michigan State University, East Lansing (ex-officio)
OCEAN STUDIES BOARD
NANCY RABALAIS (Chair),
Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, Chauvin
ARTHUR BAGGEROER,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge
JAMES COLEMAN,
Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge
LARRY CROWDER,
Duke University, Beaufort, North Carolina
G. BRENT DALRYMPLE,
Oregon State University, Corvalis
RICHARD B. DERISO,
Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla , California
EARL DOYLE,
Shell Oil (Retired), Sugar Land, Texas
ROBERT DUCE,
Texas A&M University, College Station
WAYNE R. GEYER,
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Massachusetts
D. JAY GRIMES,
University of Southern Mississippi, Ocean Springs
MIRIAM KASTNER,
Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, California
CINDY LEE,
State University of New York at Stony Brook
RALPH S. LEWIS,
Connecticut Geological Survey, Hartford
BONNIE MCCAY,
Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey
JULIAN P. McCREARY, JR.,
University of Hawaii, Honolulu
JACQUELINE MICHEL,
Research Planning, Inc., Columbus, South Carolina
RAM MOHAN,
Gahagan & Bryant Associates, Inc., Baltimore, Maryland
SCOTT NIXON,
University of Rhode Island, Narragansett
JON SUTINEN,
University of Rhode Island, Kingston
NANCY TARGETT,
University of Delaware, Lewes
PAUL TOBIN,
Xtria, Chantilly, Virginia
Preface
The Oil Spill Recovery Institute (OSRI) is a small organization based in Cordova, Alaska, but it has a large task. Established as part of the Oil Spill Prevention Act of 1990, it was charged to identify and develop methods to deal with oil spills in Arctic and subarctic environments and work to better understand the long-range effects of oil spills on the natural resources of Prince William Sound and its adjacent waters, including the environment, economy, and people. It is a small program, disbursing about $1 million each year. But it works in a critical and challenging area: helping the nation prepare for oil spills in cold regions.
The committee conducted this review much like a visiting committee review of a university program. Our nine members traveled to Alaska in February 2002 to gain an understanding of the program, its mission, and its research and technology projects. We talked frankly with the Advisory Board, scientists, and staff about the accomplishments and challenges of the program. We distributed a call for input by email and received comments from others who knew the program, and this information, although anecdotal, gave the committee broad insights into how the community perceives the OSRI program and helped us formulate our conclusions. We reviewed as many documents as we could in the time available to us: the Grant Policy Manual, sample calls for proposals, sample proposals, meeting minutes, and many other reports. Finally, we sent numerous sets of questions to the OSRI staff as we dug deeper into the program, to be sure that we understood what they did and how they did it. We then held two writing meetings, where we reviewed materials, deliberated, and wrote the final report. This report is not intended to be a
project-by-project review of OSRI activities, but instead is a broad assessment of the program’s strengths and weaknesses, with special emphasis on whether the activities supported are addressing the OSRI mission, whether the processes used are sound, and whether the research and technology projects are of high quality.
Many people provided important information to our committee as we prepared this report. In particular, the committee would like to thank Dr. Gary Thomas, Director of the Oil Spill Recovery Institute, for his insights. Special thanks go to Ms. Nancy Bird and the other OSRI staff for their diligence and patience in responding to our requests for information. We also want to thank Dr. John Calder, current chair of the OSRI Advisory Board, for his leadership and all of the members of the Advisory Board and the Scientific and Technical Committee for their input.
On behalf of the entire committee, I want to express our appreciation to the Polar Research Board’s staff, Chris Elfring and Ann Carlisle, and Dan Walker from the Ocean Studies Board. Their guidance kept us on track. Finally, let me add a word of thanks to the committee’s members. This was a talented and thoughtful group, and they showed an exceptional ability to work together as a team. We hope that our report and recommendations provide the guidance requested as OSRI moves into its second five years of existence.
MAHLON (CHUCK) KENNICUTT, II, Chair
Committee to Review the Oil Spill Recovery Institute’s Research Program
Acknowledgments
This report has been reviewed in draft form by individuals chosen for their diverse perspectives and technical expertise, in accordance with procedures approved by the NRC’s Report Review Committee. The purpose of this independent review is to provide candid and critical comments that will assist the institution in making its published report as sound as possible and to ensure that the report meets institutional standards for objectivity, evidence, and responsiveness to the study charge. The review comments and draft manuscript remain confidential to protect the integrity of the deliberative process. We wish to thank the following individuals for their review of this report:
Karl Turekian, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut
Amanda Lynch, University of Colorado, Boulder
Edward Brown, University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls
Judy McDowell, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Massachusetts
Mike Castellini, University of Alaska, Fairbanks
Cort Cooper, Chevron Petroleum Technology, San Ramone, California
Merv Fingas, Environment Canada, Ottawa, Ontario
Terri Paluszkiewicz, National Science Foundation, Arlington, Virginia
Although the reviewers listed above have provided many constructive comments and suggestions, they were not asked to endorse the conclusions or recommendations nor did they see the final draft of the report
before its release. The review of this report was overseen by Dr. Garry Brewer of Yale University. Appointed by the National Research Council, he was responsible for making certain that an independent examination of this report was carried out in accordance with institutional procedures and that all review comments were carefully considered. Responsibility for the final content of this report rests entirely with the authoring committee and the institution.