The new airboat cruises over the water. |
The state of Washington can now get closer to oil spills using the power of air.
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW), using
a grant from the Department of Ecology, bought an airboat to access shallow and
hard-to-reach areas for their aquatic weed management program and for oil spill
response when needed. The Ecology grant also funded advanced training for the WDFW
airboat operators.
“This is solving two problems at once,” said Darcy Bird, Oil
Spill Preparedness Planner for the Department of Ecology. “Fish and Wildlife needed
an airboat and we need airboat capability in the event of an oil spill. This
helps both our departments.”
Department of Ecology Oil Spill Preparedness Planner Darcy Bird |
Bird reviews contingency plans and geographic response plans,
known as GRPs. The plans guide responses to oil spills. GRPs set out strategies
tailored to specific locations at risk of oil spills. The strategies are
designed to minimize impacts to sensitive environmental, cultural, and economic
resources.
At the end of July, Bird, a staff member of the WDFW Oil
Spill Team, and a representative of an oil spill primary response contractor
used the new craft to evaluate areas around Samish Bay, north of Anacortes and
south of Bellingham. The area has a number of sensitive resources that may need
protection during an oil spill.
“Samish Bay is so unique,” said Bird. “I’ve never had the
opportunity to see eelgrass beds that closely. With a typical boat, you can’t
go into eelgrass beds because it will harm the bed and damage the boat propeller,
but the airboat glides over everything effortlessly.”
The boat operates in water, little water, or no water at
all. Bird was able to use the airboat to evaluate some of the GRP strategies
and the logistics of deploying them. Most
of the strategies were confirmed, although a couple of the sites were hard to
access, leading Ecology to reevaluate strategies in those areas.
For spill responses, the airboat can be used to rapidly move
staff into difficult-to-access areas to do site assessments, sampling efforts,
and even wildlife operations. “Now that we did this, we can also go to other
shallow environments in places like Grays Harbor and Willapa Bay to conduct the
same GRP work,” said Bird. “Collaboration is a big focus when updating
geographic response plans and we all work together to make sure these plans are
protective of the resources we have in the state.”
For more information on geographic response plans and oil
spills, visit our Oil Spills 101 webpage,
which has all the state’s geographic response plans and contact information.
Ecology provides equipment and training grants – such as the
grant used to purchase the airboat – to help local communities and other
organizations prepare for and respond to spills. For more information on grants
and the application process, visit our website.
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