Newletter
October 2000
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An EMPACT project studying water quality in Narragansett Bay has recently started under a $500,000 grant received from the EPA by the Narragansett Bay Commission (NBC). ASA is a partner with NBC and is focussing on the design of the web page and development of software tools to interactively access data collected at monitoring sites located throughout the Bay. One of the goals of the project is to make environmentally-related information understandable to everyone. Not always an easy task for scientists! One of the partners is the Office of Marine Programs (OMP) at the University of Rhode Island. OMP will provide educational information to assist in the understanding of the underlying science. The web site will provide a central source for environmental information that will serve the needs of the general public, primary school and high school students, and also scientific research and higher education institutes. Timely information will be available from a number of instruments in the water that transmit measurements of temperature, oxygen level, salinity, pH and depth. A visitor to the Narragansett Bay EMPACT site will see the monitoring sites on a detailed map of the Bay, and by clicking on a site, be able to view a graphical display of the latest measurements or transfer archived data to their own computer for analysis. The web interface will provide background information and explanations of why the data being collected are important; the significance of the values being measured; and links to other sources of related information. The intent is for the site to become a place where information about Narragansett Bay water quality can be readily accessed, explained and understood. ASAs models for the bay will also be linked so that predictions for the future may be made based on present information. This can help a use answer questions such as, If the rainfall today is .1 inches, what can I expect for water quality at my beach tomorrow? The project is scheduled to be complete by December 2001. The transportation and use of chemicals continues to increase, as does concern over the potential impacts from releases of toxic substances. The U.S. Coast Guard is currently developing regulations that will address the implications of hazardous substance releases in the marine and fresh water environments. These regulations are required under the 1990 Oil Pollution Act (OPA) and are currently undergoing a public review process. The proposed regulations define the response plans that will need to be prepared for all marine transportation-related facilities and tank vessels carrying hazardous substances. These response plans are to include an impact analysis for a worst case discharge and will pre-identify the areas where impacts to human health and the environment could occur. The plans will also identify worst case planning volumes, endpoints, and distances to endpoints. An endpoint is a threshold defining a hazardous condition, such as an exposure level, dose or pollutant concentration. The proposed regulations state that dispersion modeling will be necessary to assess the potential risks and develop response strategies. The proposed rules state that dispersion modeling capabilities will need to be available within 2 hours of a spill, along with air and water sampling resources, and readiness of various response equipment.
Dr. Deborah French at ASA has been reviewing the proposed regulations, Oil spills get a lot of media attention and are a big concern for the public. However, these regulations address the fact that chemical spills can have as much if not more impact. Our goal is to develop technology to help industry meet these guidelines as efficiently as possible. CHEMMAP: An integrated response and impact analysis tool for chemical spills. CHEMMAP can be used to answer the following questions: CHEMMAP predicts the trajectory, fate, and impacts of a wide variety of chemical substances, including floating, sinking, soluble and insoluble chemicals and product mixtures. Applications for CHEMMAP include contingency planning, spill response, drills and education, evaluation of point source discharges, environmental impact and risk assessment, cost-benefit analysis, and natural resource damage assessment. The model may be run for a hindcast/forecast of a specific release, or be used in stochastic mode to evaluate the probable distribution of contamination.
ASA has recently expanded OILMAPs capabilities to include a deep water plume model. With this extension, OILMAP can predict the evolution of the oil-hydrate plume near the sea bed, the three dimensional distribution of oil and hydrate particles in the water column as the oil and hydrates are advected and dispersed by the current and turbulent fields, and the near surface transport of oil once the oil particles reach the sea surface. This model system has been successfully applied to potential deepwater release scenarios off the West African coast for a number of major oil companies. The deep water blowout model development has been led by Dr. Malcolm L. Spaulding, ASA principal and Dr. Raj Bishnoi, University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. On 10-11 July Deborah French and Henry Rines provided training to the National Pollution Funds Center (NPFC) on the Type A Natural Resource Damage Assessment Models developed by ASA. These models are included in US regulations (CERCLA and OPA 90). The NPFC of the US Coast Guard administers the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund that provides monies for response and natural resource damage claims. On 24-28 July Deborah French participated in the annual Natural Resource Damage Assessment training/workshop in the Florida Keys for NOAAs Damage Assessment Center Rapid Assessment Program (RAP) and its contractors. This year the focus was on potential for injury and restoration of coral reefs and seagrass beds. Craig Swanson and Matthew Ward, along with Ivan Valiela of the Boston University Marine Program, presented project findings at a public meeting held on Nantucket Island on 10 August. The project used ASAs WQMAP system to simulate tidal circulation, flushing and nitrogen loading within Nantucket Harbor. The project objective was to develop a modeling system to assist the town in protecting and enhancing water quality in the harbor. Craig Swanson and Henry Rines participated in the US EPA National Environmental Monitoring Technology Conference held in Boston 19-20 September. They hosted the ASA display that included a poster entitled Development of Real Time Monitoring and Modeling Systems. The poster included a description of our COASTMAP real time monitoring and modeling software system and described highlights of four of our recent projects including: Website Development for the Narragansett Bay EMPACT Project; TRANSMAP: Framework for an Integrated Real Time Environmental Monitoring and Forecast System for Highways and Waterways in Rhode Island; Application of an Integrated Monitoring and Modeling System to Narragansett Bay and Adjacent Waters Incorporating Internet-Based Technology; and High Resolution Monitoring and Mapping of the Thermal Structure of Mt. Hope Bay. Craig Swanson, along with Marci Cole of the Boston University Marine Program, held a kickoff meeting on 22 August for the general public to describe a new ASA project on Nantucket Island, Computer Modeling of Miacomet Pond. The project was designed to determine how to minimize the large range of pond levels that cause adjacent road and basement flooding and occasionally result in the pond nearly emptying. Craig Swanson presented a talk entitled
Circulation and Pollutant Transport in Narragansett
Bay, coauthored with Dan Mendelsohn and
Matthew Ward, at the OCEANS 2000 conference
held 11-14 September. Although the conference
was hardware-oriented the talk about ASAs
modeling experience in Narragansett Bay
engendered a lively question and answer
period about model applications and the
importance of calibration.
Roddy Thomas attended MEPEX/MEMAC 2000 Conference in Bahrain, 24-26 September, which focussed on oil spill response and contingency planning in the Middle East. Roddy presented a paper entitled Next Generation Software Tools in Support of Emergency Spill Response, Spill Impact Analysis and Damage Assessment. Eoin Howlett presented a paper at the OCEANS 2000 conference held 11-14 September. Dredgemap: A GIS-based Dredging Model System was co-authored with Chris Galagan from ASA and Billy Johnson and Jim Clausner from the US Army Corps of Engineers. The paper discussed advances in the dredging models and their integration within a new GIS-based interface.
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