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Coast Guard Marine Environmental Protection personnel acted as the initial clearinghouse for offers of assistance. This effort was eventually passed on to IMO, which set up a coordination center in London to screen and sort the many offers from all over the world. During the first few days, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics all offered assistance.

In March, IMO received donations of $4.5 million from governments worldwide, which was placed in a newly established Gulf Pollution Disaster Fund. IMO used these funds to protect and clean up environmentally sensitive areas, such as Karen Island, one of the main green turtle egg-laying locations in the Gulf.

Critical problem

About one month before the spill, a revision to the Saudi Arabian Oil Spill Contingency Plan gave the overall management of a catastrophic oil spill response to the Meteorological and Environmental Protection Agency. The agency had the requisite authority, but had not developed the organization, experience, tools and other resources necessary for the gigantic task.

Within the country, most agencies were assigned to protect their own resources, such as refineries, desalination plants and other indus

trial facilities. The lack of coordination between these agencies presented the United States assessment team with its first and most critical problem.

The team had to devise means to develop a response organization from discrete entities that did not function well together, and cajole them into cooperating with one another. Drawing on the Exxon Valdez experience, including the Coast Guard's catastrophic spill plan, the United States assessment team played a critical role in recommending the organizational structure that was basically adopted in early February.

Acquiring timely data

Timely information regarding the extent, characteristics and trajectory of the massive oil slick was essential for making response recommendations. When the United States Interagency Assessment Team arrived in Saudi Arabia, the leading edge of the discharge was south of Ras Al Khafji, the scene of the first ground action of Desert Storm.

Initially, the team had to rely on DoD satellite imagery for indications of the overall extent of the slick. The team advised the Saudis of the need for accurate daily overflight data and constant tracking of the oil slick's position. Members of the team knew they would not have access to the entire spill, due to military operations and airspace restrictions in the northern Gulf region.

On January 30, using United States Navy aircraft, United States and Saudi observers started daily overflights. The extent of the initial observation covered only the slick's leading edge in the areas south of Ras al Mishab. Eventually, Saudi observers became proficient enough to conduct most of the coastal flights. However, much of the needed information was unattainable due to cloud cover, airspace restrictions and other hindrances.

On February 6, the Saudi government requested the use of the Coast Guard's AIREYE oil detection and tracking system mounted on a HU-25 Falcon jet. The product of Coast Guardsponsored research and development projects, the AIREYE uses sophisticated sensing devices including side-looking airborne radar to provide a film image of the oil on the surface of the water. This radar produces film recordings of the exact position and nature of the discharges.

The Coast Guard provided two AIREYEequipped HU-25 Falcon jets and an aviation detachment for support. The aircraft and crews operated out of Manama Airport in Bahrain.

The first AIREYE overflight was conducted on February 27. Within a week, two daily flights were made, using different grid patterns to provide and confirm data.

By this time, the coalition forces had achieved air superiority, providing safer airspace for the overflights. There was still concern, however, about the danger of missiles and other hostile fire.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration interpreted the observation data and incorporated it into a computer model that was used to validate and predict future movements of the slick.

When the war ended, reliable information for the entire Gulf area was available, and AIREYE operations ceased on April 27. By then, most of the free-floating oil had washed up onto the shorelines along the Gulf.

Saudi priorities

The United States Interagency Assessment Team also helped Saudi Arabia set up an operations center from which to direct the response. The first step was to develop an overall national response strategy, based on the following Saudi priorities:

protection of vital industrial facilities and oil refineries (critical to maintain the war effort);

FROM BELOW -- A local citizen surveys ribbon of oil and shoreline damage.

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environmentally sensitive areas. The Saudi Arabian Meteorological and Environmental Protection Agency's on-scene coordinator made a national priority list, and the limited equipment was moved to highest priority sites to protect it from the advancing oil discharges.

The United States assessment team helped develop protective measures for high priority facilities. These included diversionary booming around the mouth of the inlet areas, containment booming and oil recovery skimmers at strategic locations. The basic goal of all initial operations is the recovery of free-floating oil, so that it does not harm sensitive shorelines.

Oil recovery

Three skimming vessels were deployed in offshore operations. The largest vessel recovered more than 100,000 barrels of oil/water mixture

The southern oil migration halted at Abu Ali Island, but not by recovery efforts. The shape of the island, prevailing onshore winds, an adjacent reef and a causeway connecting the mainland to the island prevented any large amounts of oil from passing Abu Ali Island and moving far enough south to damage critical facilities.

Primary shoreline remedial response efforts took advantage of natural collection areas, formed by winds and currents forcing the oil into large pools. The construction of berms and jetties enhanced the collection points. Trenches were dug into the shoreline to collect oil in the incoming tide.

The combination of enhanced natural collection points and trenches facilitated the shoreline cleanup effort. Pumps of all descriptions recovered the pooled oil.

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Where the impact was the heaviest, the oil mixed with sand, forming asphalt about a foot thick in some places. These areas included salt marshes, mangrove swamps, and intertidal creeks and streams.

When the Coast Guard left Saudi Arabia at the end of July, reports indicated that about 1.4 million barrels (about 58.8 million gallons compared to the entire Exxon Valdez spill of 11 million gallons) of oil had been recovered and pumped into pits onshore for natural separation and further recovery.

Gulf threat diffused

During the entire process, another significant issue was recognized and addressed by the assessment teams. Oil had been collecting in massive land pools as a result of the damaged oil fields in Kuwait, and posed a major potential threat to the Gulf waters. Many of these wells and pools were less than four miles from the coast. Estimated oil accumulation was 100,000 barrels a day for every million barrels a day of oil lost from the damaged oil fields.

By the end of April, these sources were no longer considered to be a threat, as virtually no significant amounts of free-floating oil remained in the Gulf. Therefore, there were no additional substantial threats to the Saudi shoreline.

Wildlife rescue

The Saudi coastline has several wetlands, salt marshes, mudflats and mangrove swamps which provide habitats and nesting areas for many migratory and native birds, including the

Photos accompanying

this article are by

PAI's Chuck Kalnbach and Steve Sapp.

flamingo and the endangered socotra cormorant. Some areas in the Gulf are also home and nesting sites for green turtles, dugongs (Gulf cousins of the manatee) and active coral reef systems. Due to a lack of equipment and the remoteness of some of the areas, many of these sites were not protected and thousands of birds were casualties of the discharges.

Efforts to respond to and ease the damage. to the coastal ecosystem began while the oil was still moving southward. Wildlife rescue projects were established. Hundreds of birds have since been rescued and rehabilitated.

Conclusion

The United States Interagency Assessment Team completed its work and returned home on July 31. Coast Guard members of the team and the AIREYE complement fulfilled their missions in an extremely professional manner. Their virtual round-the-clock efforts in tracking the spill, developing a spill response management organization, and assessing pros and cons of countless clean-up techniques, all during a wartime setting, reflect highly upon the Coast Guard.

CDR Douglas A. Lentsch is the chief and LCDR James M. Obernesser is a staff member of the Pollution Response Branch of the Marine Environmental Protection Division of the Office of Marine Safety, Security and Environmental Protection.

Telephone: (202) 267-2611.

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By LT Mark McEwen

When Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990, little public thought was given to the potential for environmental catastrophe in this oil rich region.

On January 19, 1991, however, environmental considerations suddenly became a major international concern, when Iraqi forces began to release crude oil onto the Arabian Gulf in efforts to harass allied forces and disrupt any potential amphibious landing on Kuwaiti beaches. Crude oil was released from anchored oil tankers and shore terminals from Mina Al Ahmadi, Kuwait and Mina Al Bakr, Iraq. Anchored tankers were also pumped out northeast of Bubiyan Island, Kuwait, while the Kuwaiti refinery at Mina Abd Allah was sabotaged, resulting in a massive release of refined products.

Initial estimates of the amount of oil released into the water ranged from 130 to 450 million gallons. The final figure will probably never be known. But if the range of these estimates is averaged, the Gulf discharge would be 30 times that of the Exxon Valdez spill, the largest spill in American history.

The Saudi Arabian government and its allies knew they had to respond, if only to stop the enormous damage being inflicted on the environment of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, as well as the possible impact on Saudi desalinization plants on the Gulf coast. They had a mechanism -- the International Convention on Oil Pollution Preparedness, Response and Cooperation, 1990 that was not available to the United States in responding to Exxon Valdez. The new tool

Partly as a result of the Exxon Valdez spill, representatives of various governments met under the auspices of the International Maritime Organization (IMO), the maritime agency of the United Nations, to forge an agreement on oil pollution response and cooperation.

In November 1990, at IMO headquarters in London, representatives of 90 countries of diverse interests put aside their differences to create the potential for a common bond -- protecting the world's marine environment from oil pollution. The breadth of interest in this initiative was demonstrated by the fact that this was the largest diplomatic conference in IMO's history. The United States, fresh from its Exxon

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