Resource Center
Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Response
Learn how NRC, a recent Republic Services acquisition, served as one of the two OSROs under contract to respond to the largest marine oil spill in U.S. history.Byline: BTB Author
October 27, 2016 / Time to read: 5 minThe Challenge
On April 20, 2010, an explosion and subsequent oil spill from the Deepwater Horizon oil well drilling platform started the largest marine oil spill in U.S. history, releasing about 180 million gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico (GOM). The result was a massive oil spill and response involving federal, state and local governments as well as private resources to combat the uncontrolled well release over a three-month period.
The Solution
NRC, a recent Republic Services acquisition, was one of two national Oil Spill Removal Organizations (OSROs) under contract by the Responsible Party (RP) that responded to the event. NRC launched a massive response effort for the RP and was primarily involved with the oil spill containment, recovery, dispersant application, decontamination operations and on-site safety supervision for the event. In order to support a response of this scale, NRC deployed six of its GOM response vessels and two oil spill recovery barges and chartered another 300 third-party skimming vessels.
The Outcome
The response effort for this historic oil spill brought many firsts, including the trial of many new skimming systems and the unprecedented use of chemical dispersants on and below the ocean’s surface. Since dispersants had not been used in large quantities in past U.S. spills, their use raised much discussion within the scientific, public, and political arenas. While questions about the effectiveness in minimizing impacts from oil remain, few debate that the use of dispersants was successful in minimizing the shore-side impacts of this spill event.
