Texas Automated Buoy System (TABS): 25 Years Providing Data for Spill Response, Modeling and Research

Abstract

One of the greatest threats to the continued wellbeing of many coastal regions around the United States is the potential for damage resulting from accidents in the offshore oil and transportation industries. Accidents in these sectors can have long term effects on local flora and fauna as well as on regional human populations in terms of food supply, income, property, mental well being and overall health. High profile events such as the Ixtoc spill in Bay of Campeche in 1979, the Exxon Valdez in Prince William Sound, Alaska in 1989, the Mega Borg and Apex spills in 1990 in the Gulf of Mexico and more recently the Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010 off of Louisiana have led to legislation, tighter controls and oversight of industry. The Exxon Valdez event highlighted the need for a national policy on oil spill prevention and response. At the time of the Exxon Valdez there was no cohesive spill response plan in effect for Prince William Sound. There was no federal, state or industry entity that had the resources or the institutional mission to provide an effective response[1]. There was a single oil spill response barge, which was out of service and unavailable at that time, when 11 million gallons (257,000 barrels) of oil were spilled by the Exxon Valdez. The industry was self regulating tanker operations and there was a lack of any clear policy of who was in overall command of spill response. As a result, there was insufficient scientific equipment to monitor or track the advance of the spill and insufficient resources to clean up and disperse the oil [1]. The lack of a comprehensive plan and preparedness for reacting to an event such as this resulted in nearly 1300 miles of coastline being impacted at a cost of over 2.8 billion dollars. In response to the Exxon Valdez tragedy the United States government passed the Federal Oil Pollution Act (OPA) in 1990[2]. The legislation provides that the federal government and its agencies take charge of the oil spill response and cleanup efforts while the party responsible for the discharge of oil is accountable for all costs incurred related to the cleanup, lost income and revenue as well as damaged property. There were two major incidents which occurred off the Texas coast in 1990. These events spurred the government of Texas to enact their own Oil Spill Prevention and Response legislation [4] to prevent or mitigate damage to the Texas coastal environment and to help protect the livelihood of Texans. The first incident was a lightering accident southeast of Galveston involving the super tanker Mega Borg in which over 5.1 million gallons of Angolan crude were spilled into the Gulf of Mexico. The second incident was the Apex barge incident in which 694,000 gallons of fuel oil were spilled into the Houston ship channel. The resulting legislation, which was passed in March of 1991 was called the Oil Spill Prevention and Response Act (OSPRA)[3]. In this legislation, the Texas General Land Office (GLO) was designated as the lead agency in responding to and mitigating the potential damage of an oil spill. It is the intent of OSPRA to support and compliment the OPA particularly as it applies to the national contingency plan for cleaning up spills and discharges including provisions relating to the responsibilities of state agencies [3]. Historical oceanographic data from the Gulf of Mexico that had traditionally been used for oil spill response planning and execution was determined to be inadequate for accurately predicting spill trajectories. These two spill events off the coast of Texas, highlighted the need for local on-site command, preparedness and readiness to respond as soon as a spill takes place. Also highlighted was the need for timely, accurate environmental information so that resources could be efficiently deployed to strategic areas to intercept the oil and mitigate coastal impacts [4]-[6]. The latter need became a reality in 1994 following a request from the GLO that the Geochemical and Environmental Research Group (GERG) of Texas A&M University develop a near real time system to report near surface currents, winds and other environmental parameters to aid in spill response planning and modeling. GERG worked with private companies such as the Woods Hole Group (W. Falmouth, MA) and Urethane Technologies (Denham Springs, LA.) to develop the first buoys. The Texas Automated Buoy System (TABS) went operational in April, 1995 and it is still the only state sponsored ocean observing system in the United States dedicated to protecting the coastal environment from oil spills. With a principle mandate of supplying the GLO spill response managers with data to feed trajectory models. TABS provides essential information, necessary to intercept spills at the earliest possible moment after occurrence and reduce the potential for coastal impacts, environmental damage, as well as reduce potential health and socioeconomic impacts.