Before understanding how pollution affects you personally, you must take a realistic look at pollution. Pollutants, whether airborne or waterborne, adversely affect the food chain and often are directly harmful to humans. As Navy personnel, our primary concern is to control the pollutants aboard ship to minimize the pollution risk to ourselves and the environment.

OIL AND CHEMICAL POLLUTION

Fuel oil and chemical cleaning solvents are often used aboard Navy ships, and the possibility exists for a spill. These pollutants collect in the ship's bilges. From the ship's bilges, the pollutants are pumped into a waste oil collecting can.

Oily wastes behave just as their definition suggests: an oily waste is any solid or liquid substance that, alone or in a solution, can produce a surface film or sheen when it is discharged in clean water. Most oily wastes are derived (come) from petroleum or have characteristics of petroleum products. Waste oil is an oily waste that cannot be reused by the ship, and it contains only small amounts of water. Any mixture that causes a sludge or emulsion to be deposited beneath the surface oil and chemical pollution of the water is considered to be an oily waste.

Oily wastes frequently present a shipboard pollution problem. (Refer to the Naval Ships' Technical Manual (NSTM), chapter 593.) Oily wastes derived from lubricating oils are caused by tank cleaning operations, leakage and drainage from equipment and systems, stripping from contaminated oil-settling tanks, and ballast water from fuel tanks of noncompensated fuel systems during the ship's defueling, refueling, or internal transfer operations.

You may think that if a small amount of oil is pumped overboard, it cannot really cause much damage. Or can it? Remember, oil is less dense than water. It floats on the surface of the water and is carried by the action of winds and tides. Oily wastes can contain appreciable amounts of volatile petroleum or fuel products. When these wastes are confined in spaces, such as tanks and bilge compartments, they become a source of floating flammables or vapors that are potentially hazardous to personnel and equipment. If these vapors collect in a confined area, such as a pocket underneath a pier, they could explode if exposed to an open flame, such as from a welding operation or from a spark from a grinding wheel. Remember, YOU might be the person who is operating the torch, welder, or grinding wheel.

Besides being harmful to the environment and to people, oil and chemical discharge is also against the law. The Oil Pollution Act of 1961 prohibits the discharge of oil and oily waste products into the sea within 50 miles (150 miles in some cases) of land. A more recent law, the Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1970, prohibits the discharge of oil by any person or agency from any vessel or facility into the navigable waters of the United States inside the 12-mile limit. All oil spills or sheens within the 50-mile prohibited zone of the United States must be reported immediately.

Oil Spill Prevention

Shipboard oil pollution is controlled by the efficient use of the oily waste control system that is incorporated into your ship. Oil pollution control systems reduce oily waste generation, store waste oil and oily wastes, monitor oil and oily wastes, and transfer waste oil and oily wastes to shore facilities. Effective use of your ship's oil pollution control system depends on operators' knowledge of the ship's pollution abatement system. To use your ship's oil pollution control system effectively, operating personnel are trained and plans are made so that oil and oily waste are handled properly. Other requirements for your ship include ensuring that equipment functions properly and that bilges are kept dry and free of oil. The minimum use of detergents is recommended when bilges and equipment are cleaned. Also, always give proper attention to preventive maintenance requirements.

The best prevention method any vessel can use against oil or chemical pollution is not to discharge pollutants into the sea. However, spills do occur during refueling operations. For example, to keep a ship "on an even keel," fuel oil maybe transferred from one tank to another. Fuel storage tanks are connected by pipes and valves, some of which discharge overboard. All it takes is ONE human error, ONE valve to be open or shut through a vent pipe, and your ship has ONE spill in progress. The simplest solution is to have the people who operate the system do so in a conscientious manner. The people who operate and maintain the pollution control equipment should always be professionally trained and fully qualified.

Oil Spill Removal

If an accident occurs and oil is spilled, your ship should take prompt action to contain the oil and clean it up. A quick reaction by your ship's trained crew results in containment and often collection of the entire spill without the assistance of shore-based personnel.

Every ship should have an Oil Spill Containment and Cleanup Kit (0. S. C. C. K). Instructions for its use can be found in U.S. Navy Oil Spill Containment and Cleanup Kit, Mark 1, NAVSEA 0994-LP-013-6010. This manual describes applicable safety precautions for the use of the kit.

The kit consists of various sizes of porous mats, boat hooks, grappling hooks, plastic bags, and an instruction book for their use. If there is a spill, these absorbent mats are used by ship's personnel to soak up the spilled oil. First, soak the porous mats in diesel fuel and wring them out, which causes the mats to soak up the oil instead of water. After they are prepared, throw the mats on the oil spill to soak it up. Then, retrieve the porous mats using the boat hooks and grappling hooks. Next, wring the oil out of the mats into suitable containers. Then, throw the mats back onto the oil spill to soak up more oil. After the oil spill is removed, store the porous mats in plastic bags for disposal at a shore-based facility.

Additionally, containment trawlers can be rigged around a ship in port anytime the ship is engaged in fueling activities. Trawlers are floating fences made up of linked, buoyant pillows that confine any spilled oil to the vicinity of the hull.