A Look at the Ohmsett Oil Spill Research and Test Facility

Abstract

On 11 October 2011, the X Prize Foundation announced the winners of the USD 1.4 million Wendy Schmidt Oil Cleanup X CHALLENGE, launched during the summer of 2010 in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster in the US Gulf of Mexico. According to a press release, “the competition inspired entrepreneurs, engineers, and scientists worldwide to develop innovative, rapidly deployable, and highly efficient methods of capturing crude oil from the ocean surface.” Emerging from an original field of more than 350 submissions from all over the world, Elastec/American Marine of Carmi, Illinois, captured the USD 1 million first prize, with Norway’s NOFI Tromsø awarded the USD 300,000 second prize; no contestant’s cleanup system qualified to receive third prize. Testing the 10 finalists’ technologies in order to determine the winner would have been impossible were it not for a facility called Ohmsett (Oil and Hazardous Materials Environmental Test Tank). What is Ohmsett, and why is it so critical to the development of oil spill prevention and mitigation technology? Omsett’s Origins The existence of Ohmsett arose from response to another oil spill disaster. On 24 March 1989, the Exxon Valdez oil tanker struck Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound, Alaska, spilling an estimated 260,000 bbl to 750,000 bbl of crude oil. Considered one of the most devastating human-caused environmental disasters, a number of preventative or cautionary measures ensued. One of these was the US Oil Pollution Act (OPA 90) of 1990, which among its many provisions established a program providing for “research, development, and demonstration of new or improved technologies which are effective in preventing or mitigating oil discharges and which protect the environment.” The disaster also provided the push needed to get the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund (OSLTF), created in 1986 by the US Congress, off the ground. In August 1990, US President George H.W. Bush signed OPA 90 into law, and authorized both the use of the OSLTF as well as collection of revenue to maintain it. One of the primary purposes of OSLTF’s Principal Fund (exclusive of its Emergency Fund) is to carry out oil spill-related research and development (R&D).