The challenge of oil speculation in the gulf has changed tack recently. The focus now is not only where oil is surfacing, but predicting where the huge submerged plume will end up. Some of the impacted sites like Mobile Bay, Pascagoula, Plaquemines Parish, Pensacola might not be tomorrow’s hot spots. The options are vast and are weather and current driven. Where next and what can be done?

In cooperation with DEC Environmental, Aqua Survey, Inc. is offering to provide modular floating soil cleaning services on barges that can be strategically deployed and shifted to follow the oil slick combined with early warning detection. The equipment will consist of oily water separators to handle excess water and sand washing equipment to handle the contaminated soils that can no longer be legally disposed of in landfills.

Aqua Survey’s Director of Engineering, Dave Morgan, just returned from visiting affected areas in the Gulf with DEC personnel. DEC has extensive experience in oil skimming and sediment/soil treatment and has a plant that has just become available after its tour of duty to decontaminate soils at the future London Olympic site. We believe just as in warfare, the mobility of DEC’s proposed barge-based plant will be key to meeting the challenge and overcoming obstacles presented by the plume’s mobility.