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MORGAN CITY, La. - Forget the mundane.
This is a mission
that is often synonymous with anonymous, as its agents and incidents
can be difficult to record. Because, the worst case,
end-of-the-world very thing that should have, could have or would
have happened — did not. In the Coast Guard, an ounce of prevention
is often worth a sound hose.
Since the events of Deepwater
Horizon, oil spills have been a hot button issue in our country.
The men and women of the Coast Guard, in conjunction with the
Environmental Protection Agency, work diligently day in and day out
to protect the workers and prevent pollution.
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Petty Officer 3rd Class Will Khams, a facility inspector at Coast Guard Marine Safety Unit Morgan City, inspects a pump at a facility near the Atchafalaya River, Sept. 6, 2013. Coast Guard facility inspectors inspect the hoses that transfer oil in order to prevent environmental pollution. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Carlos Vega)
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“The EPA covers more of the land side of the facility,
the storage tanks and all of the processing equipment,” said
Petty Officer 3rd Class Will Kahms, a facility inspector at
Coast Guard Marine Safety Unit Morgan City. “We inspect
facilities to make sure they are in compliance with
applicable federal regulations to prevent pollution. A lot
of our regulations have to do with inspecting the hoses that
transfer oil from the facility to the vessel.”
MSU
Morgan City's 75,000 square-mile area of responsibility
covers a significant portion of the Gulf of Mexico, 172
miles of the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, the Barataria-Terrebonne
Estuary, and the Atchafalaya Basin. Its area of
responsibility includes more than 20,000 miles of oil and
natural gas pipelines, 442 waterfront facilities, more than
1,900 offshore oil and gas platforms and an increasing
number of floating offshore installations.
Not only
is the Morgan City AOR roughly the size of South Dakota it
further includes the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, the
nation's only deepwater oil port which also handles 14
percent of the country's foreign oil imports, and the Port
of Fourchon, Louisiana's only sea port on the Gulf of Mexico
which serves as a land base for LOOP and supports 60 percent
of the offshore oil and gas industry along with commercial
and recreational fishing vessels.
The facility
inspections department at MSU Morgan city performs more than
160 yearly facility inspections. Some facilities also
include an additional secondary security inspection; the
security systems in place are inspected to make sure they
function properly, and the Coast Guard facility inspectors
make sure they are doing the drills and exercises that are
required to be within regulations.
“The operations
manual generally refers to the transfer of oil or hazardous
material from the facility to the vessel and has a
step-by-step guide of how the transfer occurs and what steps
they take in connecting and disconnecting their transfer
equipment,” said Kahms. “Each operations manual is going to
tell you who is specifically designated and trained to
operate the transfer of oil or hazardous material safely
from facilities to the vessel.”
Facility inspectors,
like Kahms, check every facility operations manual and the
facility response plan to make sure it is up to date and
accurate.
“The facility response plan is a good tool
that they have because it will give the facility
pre-determined booming strategies, pre-determined spill
management teams,” said Petty Officer 3rd Class Britany
Mckibben, a pollution responder at MSU Morgan City. “It will
explain each duty of each Incident Command System position
if any of them find themselves in that scenario. You can
actually flip through the plan, read what their position is
and what their duties will entail.”
In pollution
cases, marine science technicians serve as the eyes and ears
of the captain of the port.
Anytime there is an oil
spill in the water, witnesses are legally required to
contact the National Response Center. MSU Morgan City
receives 13 percent of all NRC phone calls and performs
follow up investigations on each case at an average of 12 to
17 cases a week.
“Here in Morgan City most of our oil
spills are from industry, our first and foremost priority is
always going to be the safety of the people, there will
almost always be an oil spill response organization
contracted out by the company,” said Mckibben. “Our job will
be to supervise the clean up. We act as a second set of eyes
on the overall picture and act as liaisons between the
Morgan City captain of the port and the company responsible
for the spill and the company that is cleaning up.”
With five petty officers in the facility inspection
department and six petty officers in the pollution response
department, there is always a massive ongoing mission to
protect people and the environment.
“I enjoy going
out and knowing that I am going to help clear a deficiency.
It's nice to know that I have that purpose, that I have that
role,” said Mckibben. “My favorite part is being able to
work with a company and taking a side-by-side approach to
correct deficiencies that will make things safer or more
efficient.”
With every deficiency found, the Coast
Guard plays a vital role in preventing the spills of
hazardous substances in the water. It also builds trust
between federal agencies, the industry and the public by
assisting the nation in transporting its resources safely.
“What we do helps build partnerships between the Coast
Guard, the industry and the community,” said Petty Officer
1st Class Tadd Martin, a facility inspector at MSU Morgan
City. “The best part of my job is educating the community.
It's good to get out there and let them know that we are
looking out for the safety of the people and environment.”
Coast Guardsmen such as Kahms, Mckibben and Martin often
work in dynamic behind-the-scene roles that play such an
important part in the Coast Guard mission of prevention.
They foster a safer, cleaner tomorrow for a great swath
of the Gulf Coast.
By U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer 3rd Class Carlos Vega
Provided
through DVIDS
Copyright 2013
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