Local experts stand ready to help in Gulf oil crisis

Argonne National Laboratory has been waiting in the wings to help resolve the BP oil leak crisis in the Gulf of Mexico.

Argonne was among a list of national labs submitted to BP to provide expertise and scientific assistance, said Department of Energy spokesman Brian Quirke, who is based in DuPage County.

But BP and the Deepwater Horizon Response team, which includes several agencies and groups, have yet to call upon Argonne, which has about 200 research groups on a broad range of disciplines. This includes scientific modeling and capabilities to understand the oil plumes and their effects.

"Argonne remains ready," Quirke said.

When President Obama recently announced that all federal resources would be focused on stopping the massive oil leak, which has reached epic proportions and expense, the labs were geared up as part of that solution.

DOE has assembled a team of scientists, including more than 200 personnel from national labs, to analyze the response efforts and recommend options to stop the oil leak. This included recommendations that BP use high-energy gamma rays to image parts of equipment involved in the leak. Some labs have independently analyzed the two-dimensional gamma ray images, which are crucial in helping to understand what is happening, DOE said.

Many DOE officials and scientists from various labs are already at the gulf, Quirke said.

In addition, the experts BP has called upon worldwide include those from its Naperville and Warrenville operations, said local BP spokesman Scott Dean, who also has been in the gulf since the crisis started April 20.

"This is a global effort," Dean said while on a boat with a cleanup crew off the coast of Mississippi.

In addition, Naperville-based Nalco Holding Co. continues to provide its Corexit dispersant, despite an earlier controversy that the chemical may have been too toxic for the environment, especially since it is being used in massive quantities to fight the historically large leak.

"This is a product we normally sell very little of, so we have increased production over the past several weeks," said Nalco spokesman Charlie Pajor. "We have produced more dispersants in the past month than we did all last year."

The record-breaking oil spill has already consumed the work forces of the companies involved in trying to stop the leak.

Nalco's work forces in Texas and Louisiana have been working overtime to produce the dispersant, "but we have not added extra workers as we continue to hope this will be a short-term need," said Pajor.

Nalco, a global company that provides water-processing solutions, first had access to Corexit in the 1990s, when it had a joint venture with its energy solutions business with Exxon Mobil. By 2001, the joint venture was dissolved and Nalco continued with Corexit.

The substance is sprayed at the oil spill site from airplanes or boats and acts like a dish soap to separate the oil from the water. It then forms small bits that sink down into the water and are eaten by microorganisms.