Moran Environmental Recovery News

Moran Environmental Recovery, LLC (MER) and Meridian Ocean Services, LLC (Meridian) have entered into a strategic partnership agreement, the companies announced Monday. The agreement will see the companies cooperatively focus on the delivery of underwater inspection and imaging services, in an enhanced and integrated format, to a targeted base of infrastructure, marine, industrial and environmental clients throughout the U.S. “We see this agreement as an important component of the growth plans within both our commercial diving and environmental sectors,” said Brian House, President and CEO of MER. “By combining MER’s significant experience in the environmental remediation and infrastructure inspection spaces with Meridian’s extensive ROV and subsea imaging solutions…

As the Voice of Spill Response Professionals, the Spill Control Association of America (SCAA) is supporting and assisting with the planning and coordination of IOSC 2014 on May 5-8 in Savannah, Ga. SCAA encouraged all members to attend IOSC, submit technical papers, volunteer as technical paper review team members and demonstrate equipment technologies. The centerpiece of SCAA's support during this year's Conference is working with the U.S. Coast Guard IOSC Program Planning Committee and Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) to develop and facilitate the On-Water and Aerial Technology Demonstration schedule for 5 p.m. on May 7.

The Executive Control Board of the National Shipbuilding Research Program Advanced Shipbuilding Enterprise (NSRP ASE) selected seven new research projects as part of the Navy/Industry co-funded portfolio. The seven new projects, valued at approximately $20 million including industry cost share, were in response to the latest NSRP ASE solicitation released in February and continue the successful implementation of the Program’s Strategic Investment Plan. Common Parts Catalog (CPC) Implementation: This project will provide full scale testing…

Packaging foam was removed from nearly ten miles of Outer Banks coastline today as cleanup crews scoured the National Seashores at Cape Lookout and Hatteras Island, N.C. The National Park Service, Hapag-Lloyd and Moran Environmental Recovery will continue to work together to finish cleaning beaches affected by packing material that began washing ashore Wednesday.

Styrofoam packing material began washing ashore on the beaches of the North Carolina Outer Banks Wednesday afternoon as a result of a container ship encountering severe weather off the coast. The debris field ranges from Cape Lookout northward to the Virginia border. The most densely littered areas are from Cape Lookout to Cape Hatteras. Late Sunday evening, the Hapag-Lloyd vessel Paris Express encountered severe weather in the Atlantic while en route from Savannah to Norfolk, resulting in the loss of 21 containers overboard, including some containing Styrofoam "peanuts." None of the cargo involved was listed as hazardous material, although the Styrofoam could potentially be harmful to pristine National Seashore areas…

Clean up crews working on the Cooper River Oil Spill are concentrating their efforts today on the remaining heavily concentrated areas of recoverable oil between Piers Delta and Pier Papa on the Old Navy Base in Charleston. Contractors will also be replacing saturated absorbent boom with new absorbent boom to facilitate collections efforts. To date, more than 700 gallons of oil has been recovered using skimmers, absorbent pads and boom. The spill still remains a mystery but more than 100 people from 10 different federal, state and local agencies are aggressively working to clean up the oil spill. Presently, over $225,000 has been spent on the recovery effort and the ceiling for the clean up was raised from $500,000 to $750,000 today.

"Tug boat sinks, spills diesel fuel" declared the headline in the Local section of the newspaper. And, strictly speaking, the headline was correct. In 1906, The Captain Morgan had been built as a tug. But as the fourth paragraph acknowledged, "The owner was having the boat ... refurbished into a house boat." So would it be more correct, technically speaking, to say "House boat sinks?" It may be a subtle distinction, but subtleties are why people buy newspapers. Houseboaters and pleasure boaters in general, some might imagine, leave no waterborne pollutants in Charleston harbor, while commercial vessels and oil spills were practically synonymous by November 9. And potentially scandalous.