Newletter

• On 1-2 February, Deborah French McCay presented and co-presented two topics at the Dispersed Oil Research Forum in Redbank, NJ, organized by the Coastal Response Research Center of the University of New Hampshire: “Predicting PAH Toxicity Under Varying Dispersant Scenarios” by Deborah French-McCay, Jill Rowe, Walter Nordhausen, and James Payne; and “Field Verification of Dispersed Oil Fate and Transport Modeling and Linking CODAR Observation System Data with Model Predictions” by James Payne, Deborah French-McCay, Eric Terrill, and Walter Nordhausen.

• On 12-13 February, a workshop entitled “July 2006 Lebanon Oil Spill: Long-Term Impact Assessment for Lebanon and the Eastern Mediterranean Region” was held in Larnaca, Cyprus. The Cyprus International Institute for the Environment and Public Health; the Lebanon Ministry of Environment and Lebanon National Center for Marine Sciences Cyprus Ministry of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Environment; and the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis organized the workshop which included local, regional and international experts in marine oil spill impact assessment and restoration, as well as policy and decision-makers. At the workshop, Deborah French McCay presented preliminary modeling analyses of the impacts of the Lebanon Oil Spill and approaches for quantifying compensable restoration for these impacts.

• Kelly Kneeconducted an OILMAPLand training course for Valero Energy in San Antonio, TX on 27-28 February.  The course included hands-on training with OILMAPLand’s land surface and surface water network models. Valero Energy uses OILMAPLand to predict the fate of pipeline breaches.

• Nicole Whittier and Eric Comerma delivered CHEMMAP to the Marins-Pompiers, the firefighting division of France’s Marine Nationale who oversee marine operations in response of marine pollution.  As part of the system delivery Nicole and Eric provided hands on training on the use of CHEMMAP in Brest, France, 28 February – 2 March. 

During 5-7 March, Eric Comerma and Nicole Whittier conducted CHEMMAP training for Le Cedre, a private advisory organization and coordinator related with marine and estuarine pollution issues.  Cedre attendees included Emergency Response Coordinators, biologists, chemists, and GIS specialist; they worked with chemical fates in the water and atmosphere, creating new chemicals and a drill exercise.

• On 13 March, Xiongping Zhang presented the latest technology in oil spill modeling and response software at the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) offshore emergency response center in Tanghai, Hebei Province, China. Coordinated by Beijing Brunt Technology Co. Ltd., Xiongping was joined by Donnie Wilson, of Elastec Inc., who presented the latest spill response equipment. The center was founded in December, 2006 and has been set up to meet the demands of expanding offshore operations and speed up the exploration and development of Bohai Bay, China.

• Craig Swanson participated in the U.S. – Saudi Arabian Business Council Certified Trade Mission to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia from 15 to 21 March.  This mission was set up to allow small and medium sized U.S. companies meet potential public and private sector clients and partners in the Kingdom.  Craig traveled from Dammam on the Gulf coast to the capital, Riyadh, to Jeddah on the Red Sea coast with a group representing 30 companies and included the U.S. Department of Commerce Assistant Secretary Israel Hernandez. 

• Sankar Subbayya presented at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s Applied Ocean Physics and Engineering Department Seminar on 21 March, on numerical models to study hydrodynamic circulation patterns in some US estuaries and bays. The presentation discussed hydrodynamic model applications carried out by ASA for New York Harbor, Buzzards Bay, Narragansett Bay, and the Bay of Fundy.

• Mark Wholey attended the AJAXWorldTM Conference and Expo to explore the possible expansion of the use of AJAX technologies in ASA’s online Web Mapping applications. Currently, ASA’s thin client technology uses proprietary AJAX code written specifically for the mapping application allowing for an uninterrupted user experience. Mark’s time at the conference included training in Flex Technology, a rich Internet application framework based on Adobe Flash® and AJAX.

• Mark Wholey is taking part in the Open Geospatial Consortium’s Ocean Science Interoperability Experiment. The OceanS.IE is working to promote understanding of various OGC Web Service (OWS) standards in use by the Ocean-Observing community. Mark will contribute his operational use case knowledge of the OGC’s Web Mapping Service (WMS) and Web Feature Service (WFS) for distributing MetOcean data via the web. Mark has had the opportunity to develop WMS/WFS software for Web based applications and for desktop software applications including ESRI products and proprietary software. Some the users include NOAA Coastal Services Center, Maritime New Zealand, and various private energy companies.

ASA and Ocean Pollution Control (OPC) from Panama started a collaborative effort to provide Central America with the latest technology for emergency response and contingency planning. The OPC acquired OILMAP Version 6.0, and ASA will provide surface currents and wind forecast through the Environmental Data Server (EDS) system. In the beginning of March, Eduardo Yassuda visited OPC headquarters in Panama City and presented technical training to a highly motivated and technically skilled staff. The application of the newly acquired technology was put in place almost immediately, as OPC was already involved in an emergency response to an oil spill in the “Chiriquí Grande” lagoon. As a result, OPC was able to recover and clean over 90% of the impacted area.

• Scott Langtry, Matt Rayson, Oleg Makarynskyy and Marc Zapata exhibited the ASA software and services at Spillcon 2007, which was held in their home city of Perth Australia, 26-30 March. They received very positive responses to demonstrations of the newly released Version 6.0 of OILMAP and SARMAP, which has been redesigned to improve functionality and incorporate the COASTMAP Environmental Data Server (EDS) for automated input of forecast wind and current data from operational sensing and modeling systems. The ability to quickly and easily obtain detailed forecast data as wind and current fields was recognized as a significant improvement over existing system.

• On 4-6 April 2007, Deborah French McCay provided a training workshop for the US Coast Guard, National Pollution Funds Center, Natural Resource Damage (NRD) Division at their office in Arlington, VA.  The training covered oil fates, biological effects, and restoration scaling models used in NRD analyses of injury and compensatory restoration requirements for oil spills, focusing particularly on algorithms and approaches used by ASA and in the SIMAP model.  Case history examples were used to demonstrate methods and typical results.

Based on the cooperative agreement between ASA and Shanghai Academy of Environmental Science, China (SAES), scientists from SAES spent three weeks in April at ASA headquarters to learn the latest technology developed by ASA and to work on a joint research project for the Yangtze Estuary.  SAES is a leading environmental research institute in Shanghai. Currently, SAES uses CHEMMAP, OILMAP, and HYDROMAP to do risk assessment and analysis of spill incidents in Yangtze Estuary and East China Sea. Joint research project results will be used for government crisis management decision making. Xiongping Zhang has coordinated this project.

• On 24 April Melanie Schroeder attended the Northeast Fish and Wildlife Conference in Mystic, CT.  The conference focused on current research and stock status of river herring in the Northeast states and Canadian Provinces.  River herring conservation and monitoring is, and will be, a component of various ASA estuarine projects in the northeast.

• Nicole Whittier presented “Fully Integrated GIS Based LNG Consequence Model for Spills on Water” co-authored by Malcolm Spaulding, Craig Swanson, and Kathy Jayko at the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) Spring Meeting on 25 April in Houston, TX.  The AIChE spring meeting included a two-day workshop on the safety of LNG.

Lidia Pliske has joined ASA as an accounting assistant.  She brings years of experience in bookkeeping as well as a background in human resources and administration.

• Craig Swanson will attend Coastal Sediments 2007 to be held in New Orleans, LA from 13-17 May.  The conference will focus on the cascading spatial and temporal scales in coastal engineering and science.

• Craig Swanson will participate in the upcoming 18th World Dredging Conference held in Orlando, FL from 27 May to 1 June.  He will present a paper on “Modeling the Ultimate Transport and Fate of Dredge-induced Suspended Sediment” describing recent enhancements to ASA’s SSFATE model.

• On 7-9 June Deborah French McCay will present “Use of Field-Collected Data Measuring Fluorescein Dye Dispersion for Verification of a Dispersed Oil Transport Model” at the 30th Arctic and Marine Oil Spill Program (AMOP) Technical Seminar in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.  The paper summarizes a large study sponsored by the NOAA/UNH Coastal Response Research Center and California Department of Fish and Game – Office of Oil Spill Prevention and Response (OSPR), involving 8 dye studies off California where transport and dye dispersion were measured.  The objective of this research is to evaluate potential impacts of dispersed oil on water column organisms.

• Chris Mueller and Matt Ward will be attending and presenting at the Military Operational Research Society’s annual meeting on 12-14 June at the US Naval Academy, Annapolis, MD.

• Deborah French McCay will present “Modeling as a Scientific Tool in NRDA for Oil and Chemical Spills” at the Spring Conference of the North Atlantic Chapter of the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (NAC SETAC) on 13-15 June at Roger Williams University in Bristol, RI.  Her invited talk will be included in the session: “Tools and Techniques for Assessing Natural Resource Damage”, and should invoke some interesting discussion.  Jill Rowe, Melanie Schroeder, and Brooke Longval will also be attending the conference.

• On 26 June, Kelly Knee will present “Modeling Pharmaceuticals and Organic Wastewater Chemicals” at the Summer Specialty Conference of the American Water Resources Association (AWRA) titled “Emerging Contaminants of Concern in the Environment:  Issues, Investigations, and Solutions.”