Director, Dr. Robert Dickey, just returned as an invited speaker from a workshop held on April 5-6, 2017, in Moscow, Russia. The purpose of the meeting was to review the “Deepwater Horizon Well Blowout; spill response lessons learnt – effectiveness and impacts.”
Director of The University of Texas Marine Science Institute, Dr. Robert Dickey, was an guest speaker at a oil spill response conference last week in Moscow, Russia. Russia is ramping up their oil and gas production and transportation in the Russian Arctic. The goal of the workshop was to inform Russian emergency and response agencies about oil spill lessons learned during the Deepwater Horizon blowout and proceeding clean-up. Sharing information will help the Russian agencies improve their response systems that would minimize impacts to the Arctic ecosystems should a spill occur.
Dr. Dickey was joined by several experts from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, University of New Hampshire, and the United States Coast Guard. Dr. Dickey will be lending his expertise on seafood safety concerns during oil spill response. "The meeting was very informative and enlightening. The Russian oil spill response authorities have substantial and well-placed capabilities. I think the sharing of our experiences and ideas for improving oil spill contingency plans will be helpful to Russia and the U.S. in responding to environmental and public health concerns in the future," said Director Dr. Robert Dickey upon his return.
It is anticipated that this conference will continue to foster relationships between Russian and U.S. oil spill experts that will result in better oil spill response, damage assessment and restoration research in both countries.
The workshop was supported by the World Wildlife Fund and hosted at the P.P.Shirshov Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, Russia.