TABS responder — A quick response buoy to supplement the TABS network

Abstract

The Texas Automated Buoy System (TABS) began operation in April 1995 as a tool for the Texas General Land Office (TGLO) to use during oil spill events in order to reduce the socioeconomic and ecological impacts of oil spills around coastal Texas. As of 2012, the network had been used for decision making purposes in over fifty events in the Gulf of Mexico. Designed specifically for mitigating damage from oil spills TABS provides critical near real time data to decision makers to allow them to decide where to deploy resources and minimize the impact from any spill event. The buoys that make up the TABS network provide response managers with information critical to the prediction of oil spill trajectories and provide data important in deciding where they should deploy personnel, ships and cleanup equipment to intercept the slick and diminish any potential coastal impact. The TABS network is comprised of seven buoy locations distributed along the Texas coast and stretches for 324 NMI from Sabine near the TexasLouisiana border to Port Isabel near the USA-Mexico border. With long distances between buoys, it was determined in 2005 following the DBL-152 off of Port Arthur, Texas that a small, lightweight buoy capable of being deployed from any ship of opportunity would be useful in filling in the gaps between standard TABS buoys during an oil spill. Difficulties finding a suitable ship to deploy a standard TABS II buoy at the site of the spill made it clear that a buoy capable of providing the required information but small enough to be deployed by 2 men without the aid of cranes or winches would be a useful to supplement TABS. The collision of the fuel oil barge carrying over 920,000 gallons of heavy fuel oil with the 585 foot long tanker “Summer Wind” resulted in approximately 4,000 barrels (168,000 gallons) of RMG 380 fuel oil being spilled into Galveston Bay in March 2014. The day following the spill a weather front pushed most of the oil out of Galveston Bay and into the Gulf of Mexico. At the request of the TGLO, GERG deployed a TABS Responder buoy 20 NMI southwest of Galveston to provide the TGLO, the NOAA HAZMAT Office in Seattle, WA., and other spill response managers with near real time, surface current, waves and wind information for input into their trajectory models. This was the first operational test of the Responder buoy during an actual spill event. The Responder buoy will transmit data for up to 12 days at a time between charges. The lightweight buoy was designed as a self-contained pre-assembled system capable of being deployed from ships of opportunity by personnel with little or no instrument training.