Detection of Oil within the Water Column

ABSTRACT Current technology makes it difficult to detect and locate oil in the water column and make timely decisions to prevent significant ecological and economic damages. There is a very short timeframe between the start of an oil spill and for the responders to make decisions to protect the environment, numerous water-intakes and commercial facilities located along the shorelines or rivers. Therefore, data needs to be gathered from subsurface detection systems in an accurate and timely manner. However, challenges in detecting oil within the water column include poor visibility in deeper waters, difficulty in tracking oil movements in fast-moving currents and current technological limitations to finding trace amount of oil or dispersed oil at any depth. This paper captures the planning process, technological descriptions and prototype tests performed at Ohmsett. In November 2011, the Coast Guard Research and Development Center started a multi-year effort to come up with a detection and mitigation syste...