Beach-based ship goes into action in Gulf oil spill

An oil spill response vessel based for about 17 years at Little Creek in Virginia Beach is among the armada attempting to deal with the oil-rig disaster off the Louisiana coast.

The Virginia Responder, with a crew of eight, including five locally based personnel, left April 26 and arrived May 4. It may be the first time the ship, operated by a nonprofit and paid for by oil companies, has been called to service.

"Since arriving on scene in the Gulf of Mexico, the MSRC Virginia Responder has been either skimming oil near the source of the

release or chasing reports of oil west of the Mississippi River," Coast Guard Petty Officer Larry Chambers wrote in an e-mail Monday. "Today, due to weather, all responders are in the vicinity of Venice, La., for discharge of recovered oil and replenishment."

Chambers is with the Coast Guard's National Strike Force Coordination Center in Elizabeth City, N.C., which is tracking the equipment used in the response to the April 20 disaster.

As of Monday, more than 290 response vessels were on the scene and roughly 3.6 million gallons of oil-water mixture had been recovered, according to www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com, the official website that has daily updates on the recovery effort.

The Virginia Responder and nine other vessels like it have been concentrating on an area within a radius of about three to five miles from the site of the sunken rig, about 50 miles off the Louisiana coast, Chambers said.

"You're seeing the bands of oil coming from the source," he said. "You're smelling the oil; you're seeing the bands; you're seeing rainbow sheen between them. It's kind of like a puddle in a parking lot."

The local vessel is one of 22 "oil spill response vessels" stationed around the nation that are owned or operated by Marine Spill Response Corp., a nonprofit group based in Herndon.

The Responder is about 210 feet long and equipped with two oil-water separation systems, according to the nonprofit's website. The ship can only store about 4,000 barrels of recovered oil, so it works in tandem with barges with larger storage capacities, allowing it to continue operating around the clock, Chambers said.

Marine Spill Response was established in 1990 with the support of the oil and shipping industries following passage of the federal Oil Pollution Act in response to the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska.

Among other things, the act required companies involved in storing, handling and shipping oil and related products to "ensure by contract... private personnel and equipment necessary to remove to the maximum extent practicable a worst-case discharge," according to the nonprofit's website.

The group reported revenue of $86.2 million on its 2008 tax forms, the most recent available. It employed about 600 people.

Since 1993, the Virginia Responder has been docked on a sliver of private waterfront at the end of Ferry Road at Little Creek in Virginia Beach. It's not clear if the vessel has ever been used in an oil spill. A representative from Marine Spill Response referred callers to the Coast Guard.

Chambers said Monday he had no idea when the Virginia Responder might return home.

"It's an impossible thing to predict," he said. "All indications are she's going to be here for the long haul."

Funding of the response effort is the responsibility of BP, Chambers said. "They're the responsible party."