During the Julie N oil spill in 1996, one of the lessons learned by local responders was that the booming strategy for the upper Fore River didn’t work as well as expected. Shortly after clean up of the Julie N oil spill was complete, several members of the local response community, including Clean Casco Bay, NOAA, USCG, Marine Spill Response Corporation, DEP and Diver Down, got together and began to devise a new strategy to better protect the sensitive marsh area of the upper Fore River.
In June of 1998, the design team had a proposed strategy that they felt would be relatively easy to deploy, even in low tide conditions. The strategy hinged on the concept of having permanent moorings installed at key locations, having most of the strategy float at low tide and taking the bulk of the oil out of the high speed current areas of the river channel during tidal changes.
With the concept on paper, it was time to attempt to deploy the new strategy in the field. In August of 1998, a test run of the new strategy was held. The test deployment involved deploying 2400 feet of boom provided by Clean Casco Bay in the proposed configuration. The boom was then tested with cottonseed hulls to see how well the strategy performed. The boom channeled the hulls exactly where the design team had hoped it would. The boom was then left in the river overnight to make sure it would hold during changing tidal cycles.
With the test deployment a success, the team now focused on securing funding for the new strategy. The Maine Department of Environmental Protection agreed to fund the new strategy including installation of 3 permanent moorings, 2400 feet of Globe boom, one tide slide, and one shore connection. The boom was purchased and on site in September of 1998. Funding for the moorings was secured in April of 1999.
In February of 2000, the moorings have at long last been installed. The final phase of installing the tide slide and shore connection are expected to be completed by Spring of 2000. The Department would like to thank all the many responders that spent countless hours making this concept a reality. With this project near completion, our eyes are now set on similar permanent mooring projects in other sensitive areas.
