Page 31: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (May 2005)

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Researchers Honored for

Advancing Navy's

Environmental Efforts

Chief of Naval Research Radm. Jay

M. Cohen presented the Vice Admiral

Harold G. Bowen Award for Patented

Inventions to three Navy researchers in a ceremony at the Office of Naval

Research. The patent awarded to Peter

S. McGraw, John L. Drake, and

Thomas H. Hanes has helped the Navy find better ways to store plastic waste on board many of its ships.

The three researchers worked at the

Naval Surface Warfare Center,

Carderock Division, in 1995 when they were issued U.S. patent 5,411,697 for their Method for Processing

Contaminated Plastic Waste.

Their work was part of the Navy´s

Pollution Prevention Afloat program to provide cost effective and environmen- tally friendly solutions to comply with

U.S. laws, including individual state laws, and international treaties.

This patent was key to the develop- ment of the Plastics Waste Processor, which was developed according to a

Congressional mandate.

The processor shreds the plastic into small chips, and then a separate unit melts, sanitizes and compresses the plastic waste into a sanitary disk, weigh- ing approximately 15 pounds, which can be retained on board until a ship returns to port.

More than 650 of these devices have been installed on 189 U.S. Navy ships spanning 27 ship classes. Without this capability, ships would have to find stor- age space (on the order of 1,000 cubic yards every 30 days for an aircraft carri- er) to retain food-contaminated waste such as packaging material from the gal- ley.

Ships receive one or more of the units, depending on the amount of waste expected during a mission. The modular approach allowed for standardization across ship classes and simplified fleet- wide installation.

The Canadian and Australian navies have also adopted the device and it is now being considered by the cruise ship industry and Dutch navy.

This award is named in honor of Vice

Admiral Harold G. Bowen who was the first Chief of Naval Research. He was responsible for the establishment of a "grass roots" patent system within the

Navy and instrumental in the statutory creation of the Office of Naval

Research, which succeeded the adminis- tratively established Office of Research and Inventions.

Kvichak Aquires MARCO

Pollution Control

Kvichak Marine Industries, Inc. acquired MARCO Pollution Control, a company that designs and manufactures oil spill recovery equipment. With this,

Kvichak will expand its product offering for its existing line of all-aluminum ves- sels used in the spill recovery industry - many of which utilize the MARCO

Filterbelt module as the primary recov- ery platform. Kvichak's first goal fol- lowing the acquisition is to begin build- ing an inventory of commonly used spare parts - with the initial focus on the one-foot and three-foot wide backing belts and filter pads used on the

Filterbelt Oil & Debris Recovery

System.

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Oil Spill Draws $577K Penalty

Foss Maritime Co., which was respon- sible for a December 2003 oil spill that fouled shorelines in Snohomish and

Kitsap counties, was ordered to pay nearly $577,000 in state penalties, Jay

Manning, director of the Department of

Ecology (Ecology), announced. A Foss barge spilled approximately 4,700 gal- lons of heavy fuel oil while being filled at the ChevronTexaco terminal at Point

Wells in Snohomish County. A Foss employee in charge of filling the barge miscalculated the flow rate into a tank during the fuel transfer. Also, a detector and alarm to warn when barge tanks are about to overflow were improperly installed and gave no warning. Foss conducted a 115-day effort to clean up the spill, under the supervision of

Ecology, the U.S. Coast Guard, Kitsap

County and the Suquamish Tribe. "Foss has a record of being sensitive to the environment, but this spill simply should not have happened," said

Manning. "I commend Ecology for its exhaustive and thorough investigation on the Point Wells spill," said Bruce

Reed, vice president of operations for

Foss. "The spill was an unfortunate event, and Foss has taken the lessons learned from the incident and applied them to our oil-transfer operations."

Subject Fuel Pipes

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Marine Environment

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