Environmental Progress - Summer 2001

Oil Recovery Demonstration

Rice On the River; Oils Well That Ends Well

On a sunny day this May, at the confluence of the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers at the Brussels Ferry landing, where floodwaters had only recently started receding, an unusual flotilla was deployed.

Each emergency recovery poses its own set of problems.

The United States Coast Guard, in cooperation with Illinois EPA, the Illinois Department of Transportation and the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, staged a hands-on exercise to demonstrate the latest in oil spill containment and recovery equipment.

The showcase demonstration was the first on-the-water deployment in an inland river of the Coast Guard's Vessel of Opportunity Skimming System (VOSS) to capture oil sheens. Although VOSS equipment is available and has been used in U.S. ocean coastal areas for several years, recently one set was placed at a federal facility in Granite City to be available for assisting state and local emergency response agencies.

The demonstration in May was timed to coincide with the Upper Mississippi River Basin Association's Spills Group meeting in nearby Alton.

Environmental response professionals from several Upper Mississippi River basin states were on hand for the demonstration, along with local and state officials and news media representatives.

The VOSS system was installed on an IDNR barge. The device, a series of connected cells and a foam-filled boom, moves through the water creating a pocket to trap oil on the river's surface.

Rice hulls simulated oil

Rice hulls were scattered on the Illinois River to simulate an oil spill. They have similar properties in the manner they float and are affected by the wind, but pose no environmental risk and are biodegradable.

The May demonstration consisted of two skimming runs, each lasting about 20 minutes and resulting in an estimated 75 percent recovery of the rice hulls, considered a good achievement for an initial trial. "This is a combination of a test and a demonstration so that people from Illinois and Missouri and people who take care of the rivers can see for themselves the capabilities of the system," said Kurt Hansen, a research engineer for the U.S. Coast Guard Research and Development Center in Groton, Conn.

Hansen was part of a team of Coast Guard personnel, many of them part of the National Strike Force, based at Fort Dix, N.J., who traveled to the area for the demonstration that had been in the planning stage for about five months.

System is adaptable

Whatever method is used, containing the release is the prime goal.

Virtually any vessel that is at least 65 feet in length can be used to deploy VOSS. "The system is designed to be adaptable for different types of boat configurations and different superstructures and the experience level of the people who deploy it will determine where to position the equipment for the most effective spill recovery," said Chief Warrant Officer Leo Deon of the Coast Guard's National Strike Force.

Because of the potential for oil spills from river barges and shore storage facilities and the threat to public water supply intakes along the Upper Mississippi River, the VOSS system could be a good tool for dealing with future releases, said Jim O'Brien, manager of IEPA's Office of Emergency Response.

"When the river is as wide as the Mississippi, deploying booms from the shore can be a problem," he noted.

O'Brien noted there were a dozen public water supply intakes in Illinois alone along the Upper Mississippi.

Other new methods

A couple of other shore-based oil recovery systems to help protect those water supplies were also demonstrated in May.

Magnus Klaus, whose company in Sweden specializes in producing oil recovery equipment for fast moving water, brought a team to demonstrate its "boom vanes" on the Illinois River. It was first tested successfully in the U.S. on the Columbia River in the Northwest.

A mooring line was attached to a large tree near the shoreline and 500 feet of boom was deployed. The advantage of the system was it could be deployed relatively quickly in fast-moving water when use of a boat was not available.

And for situations where a boat or shoreline anchoring was unavailable? A Canadian company that also specializes in oil recovery equipment showed off its "boom deflector" devices in the faster-flowing current of the Mississippi at Alton in May. The rudder-like structures, with one 100-pound anchor sinking to the river bottom, provided 1,000 feet of boom spread to divert an oil sheen. The devices are intended to "work with the (river) flow, they basically do all the work for us," noted company president Len Brown.