Page 37: of Marine News Magazine (March 2011)

36 38

OSRVs, requested by the Coast

Guard last March. Following the BP accident, the federal government admitted last June that the nation's specialized skimmers were inadequate to deal with the volume of oil gushing in the Gulf, and decided to accept offers of skimmers from other coun- tries.

Meanwhile, the proposed OSRV standard remains in the development phase within the ASTM Committee

F25 on Ships and Marine

Technology, according to Robert

Morgan, technical committee opera- tions director at ASTM International in Pennsylvania. ASTM

International, formerly known as the

American Society for Testing and

Materials, develops voluntary stan- dards to improve product quality and enhance safety.

The proposed standard will define designs, engineering systems and on- board, spill-cleanup equipment for

OSRVs of varying sizes, and can be incorporated by companies or imple- mented by regulators, he said. “ASTM standards are developed by stakeholders from industry, and because of their technical credibility are often cited in regulations,”

Morgan said.

ASTM International's Committee

F25 on Ships and Marine Technology includes the U.S. Coast Guard, U.S.

Navy, and shipbuilders, equipment manufacturers and environmental engineers from a number of coun- tries. The new OSRV standard, when it's released, will beinternational.

The USCG has adopted a number of ASTM standards, Morgan said.

The U.S. government uses private sector standards because the National

Technology Transfer Act requires them by law. In addition, “govern- ment agencies recognize the technical expertise in the private sector, and leverage that for their standards needs,” he said. Anyone interested in the OSRV standard can contact

ASTM, he said.

Members of the Gulf maritime industry said they expect to attend a

March 15 public workshop held by

BOEMRE in New Orleans to discuss new safety and environmental-man- agement-system requirements for off- shore oil-and-gas companies. New regulations for vessels are coming, but because of the nature of the BP acci- dent, they won't be as dramatic as the phase-in of double-hulled tankers after the Exxon Valdez spill. www.marinelink.com MN 37

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