International Oil Spill Conference Proceedings · 2001 · 10 citations · 0 references
Natural SciencesMarine SciencesOceanographyChemical OceanographyEnvironmental MonitoringOcean InstrumentationFluorescence SpectroscopyMarine InstrumentationMarine Monitoring SystemsMarine PollutionMarine SensorsOceanographic SensorsDispersant EffectsEnvironmental Monitoring InstrumentsMarine Contaminant MonitoringMarine Oil Spill MonitoringOceanographic Measurement SystemsOil Spill Baseline MonitoringOil Spill DetectionOil Spill Weathering
ABSTRACT For a 6-month period between May and September 1999, the staff and crew of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) research ship R/V Ferrel augmented their activities to support a baseline fluorometry study for NOAA's Office of Response and Restoration (OR&R). During the study period, scientific data were collected at more than 50 stations in the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico. The study was designed, in part, to assess the Special Monitoring of Applied Response Technologies (SMART) program. SMART is a joint U.S. Coast Guard (USCG), U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and NOAA monitoring program that provides near real-time feedback to the Unified Command during dispersant applications to mitigate marine oil spills. Using fluorometers to accurately measure dispersed oil concentrations is not a trivial task. Detector response values vary because of oil composition and oil weathering; dispersed oil is not in true solution; and natural waters contribute matrix effects and background fluorescence. It was the latter two that were investigated. Because seawater is a complex mixture of dissolved chemicals, particulates, and living plants and animals, archiving samples for future analysis relative to background fluorescence is problematic. Each contributes to background fluorescence and matrix effects when dispersed oil is present in the sample. Since water samples change with storage, only near real-time analyses are valid; therefore, using an at-sea laboratory like the NOAA's Ferrel was essential to the study design. Results suggest that the adverse flouorometry effects observed for open-ocean environments were within typical quality-objective goals. Therefore, the range of seawater composition changes observed in this investigation had very little effect on the ability to detect dispersed oil and meet the SMART mission objectives.