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Oil Spills and the Marine Environment
RESEARCH
ON PREVENTION OF PIPELINE RUPTURE
Most of the
ruptures of undersea pipelines result from corrosion of the
external surface of the pipeline. The conditions leading to this
corrosion vary widely, and the ability to predict corrosion rates
requires extensive research on how water chemistry and bottom
structure affect corrosion.
Pipeline
inspection by divers is difficult, incomplete, and expensive.
Research is needed to develop a device that from time to time can
be put through a pipeline to measure the minimum thickness of the
stress-bearing portion of the pipeline.
RESEARCH
ON POLLUTION PREVENTION FROM TANKERS
Prevention of Oily Ballast
Discharge
The
load-on-top system of ballast water handling has reduced pollution
from tankers on long voyages. As time goes on and older tankers are
taken out of service, virtually all large tankers will employ the
load-on-top system on long voyages. The dirty-ballast discharge
problem will then exist only on tankers whose voyages are too short
to allow use of the LOT procedure (and on ships using the LOT
system during very rough voyages). It may be feasible to require
tankers to remain loaded in port long enough to allow the oil and
water to separate.
The
development of oil-water separators capable of dealing with dirty
ballast water at shoreside is also feasible. Some work has been
done on separators (), but much more is needed to achieve
acceptable separation at the swift flow rates required.
The work done
on development of segregated ballast tanks and membranes for
keeping ballast water and oil separated has been quite limited.
This research should be expedited so as to develop ships requiring
a minimum amount of ballast water and very few segregated ballast
tanks and to determine whether or not the membrane concept can be
made operational.
Minimization of Tanker Casualties
Tanker
Design.
Work should
be done to determine safe loading and operating procedures for any
tanker under specified conditions. There has been much thought of
late about reducing the pollution risk following tanker grounding
by requiring that tankers use double bottoms without carrying cargo
between the bottoms. Work also needs to be done to determine just
how much this will reduce the pollution risk, and to determine on
which routes it should be required.