Offshore Situation Room: Enhancing Resilience to Offshore Oil Disasters in the Gulf of Mexico

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More than a decade after the Deepwater Horizon disaster, the Gulf Research Program convened a diverse group of 60 experts in a virtual event to inform its efforts to enhance resilience to future offshore oil disasters in the Gulf of Mexico region. The event, Offshore Situation Room, took place over three half-days during June 15-17, 2021, and had four main objectives: 1) develop a concise, prioritized list of questions that need to be addressed to support successful prevention, response, and recovery that would minimize the impacts of an offshore oil disaster; 2) provide a collaborative atmosphere where participants can share ideas, capabilities, and information, and build a community dedicated to the successful prevention of, response to, and recovery from an offshore oil spill disaster; 3) explore capabilities for and impediments to prevention, response, recovery, and understanding impacts of an offshore oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico; and 4) highlight how changes in policy, response, resilience, and restoration efforts may affect outcomes of a major offshore incident. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussion of the event.

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86 pages · 6 x 9 · paperback
ISBN Paperback: 0-309-26913-X
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-26914-8
DOI: https://doi.org/10.17226/26347

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National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2021. Offshore Situation Room: Enhancing Resilience to Offshore Oil Disasters in the Gulf of Mexico: Proceedings of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

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Richard Sears

Mr. Richard Sears, a geophysicist, is an adjunct professor at Stanford University. As chief scientist for the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, Mr. Sears provided technical and policy recommendations on offshore drilling to prevent future accidents of this type. Mr. Sears provided technical expertise to the investigation into the causes of the incident, and in the preparation of recommendations to the Commission. He was responsible for accessing industry expertise to aid the Commission in carrying out its duties, and was a contributing author of the Chief Counsel’s Report, which detailed the technical and managerial factors leading to the blowout and spill. Mr. Sears also served as a member of the Department of Interior’s Ocean Energy Safety Advisory Committee. During his 33 years with Shell Oil Co. and Royal Dutch Shell, Mr. Sears acquired significant domestic and international experience in the upstream oil and gas industry, holding technical and managerial positions including exploration geophysicist, technical instructor, economist, strategic planner, and general management. He received a BS in physics and an MS in geophysics from Stanford University.

Patrick A. Barnes

Patrick Barnes is a licensed professional geologist and environmental justice advocate. In 1994, he founded BFA Environmental a minority owned, multidiscipline environmental engineering, scientific consulting and land surveying services firm. At their peak, BFA had over 150 employees in the Gulf states, executing over 20 million dollars in contracts. BFA has completed water resources management, emergency response and environmental assessment/restoration projects in Florida, Louisiana, Alabama and Texas. At the core of a successful environmental restoration project is data collection and monitoring and true community engagement. Under contracts with the South Florida Water Management District, charged with helping to implementing the multibillion Everglades Restoration Program, BFA provided over 3 million dollars of data collection and environmental monitoring services. For hurricanes in the early 2000’s, BFA trained and employed hundreds of residents from impacted areas to participate in the recovery effort. Seeing a community need in 2006, Mr. Barnes provided $300,000 of seed capital to establish Limitless Vistas, Inc.(LVI), a workforce development and STEM skills job training non-profit. LVI uses the Conservation Corps approach and a service learning model to engage young adults. It has trained and certified over 600 at-risk young adults for the emergency response and coastal restoration projects resulting from hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Gustav, Ike, and Irma and the BP oil spill. In April of 2013, Mr. Barnes was recognized by the White House as a Champion of Change for his effort to bring environmental resiliency to vulnerable coastal communities through job training.

Brian M. Salerno

Brian Salerno is the Senior Vice President for Maritime Policy at CLIA. In this capacity, he works in conjunction with member companies to develop industry positions on a wide variety of safety, health, environmental and security matters affecting cruise ship operations around the world. He oversees a team of experts who interact with government agencies, standards setting organizations and international bodies for the purpose of shaping the regulatory land-scape in a way that enables uninterrupted cruise operations. Brian served 36 years in the U.S. Coast Guard, retiring in 2012 at the rank of Vice Admiral. During his career, he worked in a variety of Coast Guard operational missions, with a particular focus on maritime safety. He commanded field units in San Juan, Puerto Rico and in Boston MA, serving concurrently as Captain of the Port, Officer in Charge Marine Inspection, Federal On-Scene Coordinator for environmental responses, and after the 9/11 attacks, as Federal Mari-time Security Coordinator. Overseas assignments included a tour as the Maritime Safety Advisor to the Panama Canal Authority. As a Flag Officer, he was responsible for establishing pro-gram policy for all prevention and response missions. He also led the U.S. delegation to the International Maritime Organization’s Maritime Safety Committee. His most senior position was that of Deputy Commandant for Operations, which he held from 2010 to 2012. Immediately upon retirement, Brian began working as a marine consultant. He served as the U.S. Liaison for BIMCO - an international ship owner’s association headquartered in Copenhagen. He also served on the Panama Canal Navigation Safety Advisory Board. In 2013, he was appointed by the Secretary of the Interior to lead the recently established Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), which was focused on offshore oil ex-ploration and production. While in this position, he strengthened Government oversight procedures based upon lessons learned from the DEEPWATER HORIZON oil spill. He stepped down in January 2017. Following his term at BSEE, Brian resumed work as an independent marine consultant. He also serves as Vice President of the U.S. Friends of World Maritime University, and as a Board member for the North American Marine Environment Protection Association (NAMEPA). He joined CLIA in December 2017.

Francis Wiese

Dr. Francis Wiese is a Senior Principal within Stantec’s Environmental Services Group and serves as Stantec’s overall Technical Leader for Marine Science. Francis brings 25 years of experience working in the coastal and marine environment throughout the world, designing, implementing, and managing large inter-disciplinary, multi-institutional science programs in the North Atlantic, North Pacific, Bering Sea, Gulf of Alaska, and the Arctic, and conducting projects in the North Sea, Caribbean, Galapagos, Gulf of Mexico, and the east and west coast of North America. Dr. Wiese has worked for and with academia, government, non-profits and industry, is a technical reviewer for over 20 international journals and serves on a variety of national and internal science panels and working groups. He has also provided expert testimony for oil pollution related issues in Canada and the United States. Dr. Wiese has extensively focused on environmental impacts as a result of anthropogenic stressors, marine shipping, marine spatial planning, climate change, environmental policy, adaptive management, resiliency, population and bio-energetic modeling, aerial surveys, satellite telemetry, marine mammals, seabirds, fisheries, study design, statistical analyses, and public speaking. He most of all enjoys thinking outside the box to solve complex real-world issues.

Charles R. Williams

Charlie Williams was named Executive Director for the Center for Offshore Safety (COS) in March 2012. Previously he retired from Shell Oil as Chief Scientist - Well Engineering after a 40 year career. At Shell Mr. Williams held other senior management positions including Vice President – Global R&D. He is a mechanical engineering graduate of the University of Tennessee and Professional Mechanical Engineer. He received the 2012 Offshore Technology Conference Special Citation and the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) Regional Safety Award for his offshore safety work. Mr. Williams serves on the Department of Interior OESC Federal Advisory Committee, and he has presented extensively on Safety Management and drilling technology - including to the Presidential Commission, Center for Strategic and International Studies, and National Academy of Science. Mr. Williams chaired the post-Horizon Joint Industry Task Force - Subsea Well Control & Containment and the BSEE/Argonne Labs Workshop – Effects of Water Depth on Offshore Equipment & Operations. He is a recipient of the US Department of Interior - Corporate Citizenship Award and has been awarded the National Ocean Industries Association “Safety in the Seas Award". Mr. Williams has also served on the Petroleum Engineering curriculum advisory committee at University of Texas. He has been a lifetime member of the SPE.

Monica Wilson

Dr. Wilson is a member of the Sea Grant Oil Spill Science Outreach Team. She is based in St. Petersburg, Florida, with the UF/IFAS Extension of the Florida Sea Grant College Program. Monica started as a physical oceanographer, modelling circulation, flushing, and the impacts of tropical storms on coastal systems in the region. During her graduate tenure at the University of South Florida (USF) College of Marine Science, her research involved using numerical models as a tool to aid in the understanding of the circulation and flushing changes in the Tampa Bay Estuary during extreme events such as hurricanes and extratropical/winter storms. She investigated both short-term and long-term effects of large-scale weather events on the flow field and tidal residual circulation, as well as their cumulative impact of flushing on the bay. In her current role, she transfers and shares information between GoMRI oil spill scientists and coastal stakeholders at a state, regional, and national level. The team’s focus is on the two-way transfer of information between the people whose livelihoods depend on a healthy Gulf of Mexico and the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative scientists, administrators, and board of directors.

Karina Khazmutdinova

Karina Khazmutdinova is a Program Officer with the Gulf Research Program’s Board on Offshore Energy Safety and Understanding Gulf Ocean Systems Initiative. Karina first joined the National Academies as a Christine Mirzayan Science and Technology Policy Fellow. Prior to this, she was a postdoctoral associate at Florida State University, working with inverse models to better quantify the global ocean circulation and its effects on climate. Karina holds a Ph.D. in geophysical fluid dynamics from Florida State University with a focus on caves’ microclimate and a B.S. in applied mathematics from the National University of Science and Technology in Moscow, Russia.

Offshore Situation Room: Enhancing Resilience to Offshore Oil Disasters in the Gulf of Mexico

June 15 - 17, 2021

Past

Materials

Offshore Situation Room Player Instructions

About

Over three-half days in June 2021, the Gulf Research Program (GRP) will be hosting the Offshore Situation Room (OSR). The OSR is a virtual event, which will explore our current capabilities regarding prevention of, response to, and recovery from an offshore oil disaster through interactive gaming-scenario sessions and small group discussions.

For this first round, participation in the OSR will be by invite-only to ensure representation from a wide range of stakeholders. The results of this first event will be widely shared with the broader community. GRP hopes to host follow-on activities that will allow more people to participate.

To learn more about the OSR, please visit our project page.

Contact

Jenn Summers

JSummers@nas.edu

Disclaimer

It is essential to the National Academies mission of providing evidence-based advice that participants in any of our meetings or events avoid political or partisan statements or commentary and maintain a culture of mutual respect. The statements and presentations during our meetings or events are solely those of the individual participants and do not necessarily represent the views of other participants or the National Academy of Sciences, which is a non-partisan, tax exempt organization that includes under its Charter the National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Medicine, and that operates the National Research Council.

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Offshore Situation Room: Enhancing Resilience to Offshore Oil Disasters in the Gulf of Mexico

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