3. Know the Way of the Waves

Researchers need not only to get a better grasp on current conditions, but also to gain a better understanding of how oil migrates from a disaster site and how to contain its spread. Tony Dalrymple, the Willard and Lillian Hackerman Professor of Civil Engineering, whose research focuses on modeling waves and on engineering coastlines to enhance safety, notes how little researchers know on topics that might help alleviate oil spills.

“After the Exxon Valdez spill, there was a fair amount of money devoted to research on oil containment, but with time this money has gone away,” he explains. Much of the technology being used to combat the Deepwater Horizon spill, he adds, is decades old. Additionally, many of the fixes that were proposed or implemented have not been thoroughly researched and may affect other parts of the ecosystem in unknown ways.

For example, Louisiana and some other coastal states were eager to build sand berms, long dams made out of sand, to block oil from reaching the coastline. Louisiana in particular, which started building the berms within weeks of the Deepwater Horizon spill, planned to get the necessary sand for the project by dredging it from nearby barrier islands.

However, Dalrymple notes, the consequences of building such sand berms are unknown. Dredging the sand from offshore shoals could affect the nearby islands in a way that makes the coastline more susceptible to tropical storms and hurricanes. The berms may also weaken the health of wetlands even more than the oil, since these marshes need tidal flushing to stay alive. The berms probably wouldn’t be a long-lasting fix anyway, eventually eroding from the action of waves. (The United States federal government shared similar views with Dalrymple—they put a stop to the $360 million project on June 24.)

Similarly, researchers have no clear picture on how oil mixed with water changes wave behavior, a factor that might influence oil’s spread. Showing a visitor a photo of a curly wave spotted with brownish-orange oil blobs like a piece of amber jewelry, Dalrymple pointed out the wave’s unusual formation—the oil’s heavier viscosity had dampened the wave’s motion.

Though Dalrymple’s current wave modeling research is more focused on understanding the effects of sediments, he notes that the models he’s developing could also be useful for understanding the effects of oil on top of water and how oily waves might be affected by wind blowing or various weather conditions.

Regardless, he notes, his research and that of others could help add to the stockpile of knowledge necessary to act quickly in the event of another oil spill disaster.

“Clearly, no one expected something bad to happen, because we were woefully unprepared to deal with it,” says Dalrymple. “The biggest problem underlying this and other disasters is the failure to plan for failure.”

Ideally, the next time disaster strikes, he adds, the world will be better prepared.

Even before the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Tony Dalrymple had a deep knowledge of the fragile Louisiana coastline. After Katrina, Dalrymple was part of the first engineering team (a group organized by the American Society of Civil Engineers) to enter New Orleans to determine the causes of the levee failures. He then chaired a National Research Council committee that examined the Army Corps of Engineers’ plans to provide hurricane protection to southern Louisiana. This fall, Dalrymple is drawing upon his expertise as a newly appointed member of the state of Louisiana’s Office of Coastal Protection and Restoration Master Plan Science and Engineering Board. In this capacity Dalrymple will help make recommendations about how the state should spend its coastal protection dollars. Provided by the federal government and through future offshore oil and gas revenues, the fund is the nation’s largest designated for coastal protection efforts.