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USF program to track oil spills falters

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By CATHERINE DOLINSKI

cdolinski@tampatrib.com

Published: October 31, 2009

Updated: 10/31/2009 12:33 am

TALLAHASSEE - For years, Texas has relied on scientists and technology at Texas A&M University to track oil spills, forecast where they are headed and minimize the damage they cause.

In St. Petersburg, the University of South Florida's College of Marine Science operates the same kind of program. But that program relies on federal funding that has slowed to a trickle - just as Florida leaders talk seriously about opening up Florida's Gulf of Mexico waters to offshore drilling, as close as three miles off the beach.

A state that permits drilling offshore without serious ocean monitoring does so at its own risk, said Robert Martin of the Texas General Land Office. "I'd say it's vital."

Martin should know, as indicated by his official title: Director of Research and Development and Scientific Support for Oil Spills.

With help from the oil industry, Texas pays more than $1 million a year for its ocean monitoring program. But while the Lone Star State is experiencing budget surpluses, the Sunshine State has been slicing billions from its budget to stave off deficits.

More budget shortfalls are coming, and if Florida does lift its offshore drilling ban, it will be years before the state cashes in on oil and gas royalties.

Given all that, would Florida's leaders pay to keep up the USF program?

A million dollars would go a long way at USF's West Florida Coastal Ocean Monitoring and Prediction System, oceanography professor Robert Weisberg said. Today, the program operates on about half that.

Weisberg and fellow oceanographer Mark Luther lead the USF program, which uses sensor-implanted buoys, satellite imaging and intricate computer models to monitor the currents and contents of Gulf waters off Florida's coast.

Real-time data on waves, wind, water temperature, salinity and particle contents all feed into the system to update it constantly. The USF team is already helping the state track red tide. Weisberg said they can do the same for oil.

"I have the tools and the capacity," he said. "But it has to be funded."

The USF program began with a five-year federal earmark that at one point yielded as much as $700,000 a year.

That was back in the heyday of funding, said Debra Hernandez, director of a Southeastern regional association of programs such as the one at USF. "It's been slowly winding down over the last decade."

Scientists had hoped that when that five-year funding stream ran out, Congress would keep up support with annual appropriations. But funding has been cut in half, she said.

That amounts to $75,000 for USF's program now, Weisberg said. The university provides key resources such as technical staffing. Weisberg and Luther cobble together the rest of their budget from a variety of grants and related sources.

"We probably spend more time chasing money than working these days," Weisberg said.

The state Legislature and Gov. Charlie Crist has also eliminated income for the program.

In 2007, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute partnered with USF to create a Center for the Prediction of Red Tides. But though it was a five-year contract, it relied on annual state funding. This year, state leaders cut the $5 million budget by 60 percent.

"A lot of our outside contractors were cut; unfortunately, Bob (Weisberg) was one of them," said Cindy Heil, a senior research scientist at the Fish and Wildlife institute who leads its red tide group.

She described USF's program as unique in Florida. While the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration also monitors the Gulf, it relies on less data and, therefore, is less accurate, she said.

USF's tracking and prediction tools could easily apply to an oil spill, and it can even help in the recovery of people who fall overboard from boats, she said. "There are multiple uses; that's why it's so frustrating to see them losing funding."

In Texas, ocean monitoring data from Texas A&M expedites oil spill cleanup efforts, said Martin, the spill expert at the state's General Land Office.

That technology came into play recently, he said, when two tankers collided 40 to 50 miles off the shore of Galveston on Oct. 20. Ocean monitoring by Texas A&M made it possible to forecast the spill's trajectory.

Martin is familiar with USF's program, which, he said, was comparable to the one at Texas A&M. Florida would be wise, he said, to support the program it has, especially if it is going to allow drilling off its Gulf coast.

"There is some risk, of course, associated with oil production," he said. "It's just part of the business; accidents do happen."

Reporter Catherine Dolinski can be reached at (850) 222-8382.

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