In an effort to provide aid to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Mississippi’s four research universities have joined forces to help monitor and relieves the effects of the disaster.
The Mississippi Research Consortium Deepwater Horizon Response Team (DHRT) will be helping other private, state and federal agencies with the observation of the oil spill off the Louisiana coast.
DHRT’s current efforts include forecasting the coastal movement and impact of the spill, video recording and documenting developing events, monitoring water qualities and analyzing the spill’s impact of humans and wildlife.
The DHRT consists of Ole Miss, Mississippi State University (MSU), the University of Southern Mississippi (USM) and Jackson State University (JSU). Each university has two representatives in the DHRT, the group is a part of the Mississippi Research Consortium (MRC).
UM and USM are also helping the effort through the National Institute for Undersea Science and Technology (NIUST), to which both schools belong.
MSU and USM are working with coastal institutes such as Louisiana State University, Dauphin Island Sea Lab and Florida State University to assist in research connected
to the interactions of atmosphere, land, and ocean through the Northern Gulf Institute (NGI)
“Mississippi universities employ some of the best minds in the world,” Hank Bounds, Commissioner of Higher Education for the state of Mississippi, said in
the same release. “By working together within our system, and with other higher education systems in affected states, we can help find practical solutions to the problems that could follow this devastating oil spill.”
Shortly after the spill occurred, USM formed the Oil Spill Response Team. This team consisted of faculty, staff, students and scientists from USM, as well, as the Gulf Coast Research Laboratory and Stennis Space Center.
Their scientists were also working with several other agencies including, the National Oceanographic Atmospheric Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources.
The DHRT was formed shortly after USM created their team to better coordinate response efforts across the MRC.
“We have faculty with substantial, relevant expertise at each of these institutions,” Dr. Alice Clark Vice Chancellor for Research at Ole Miss as well as the current chair for the MRC said in a press release. “This response team will help us stay organized in sharing knowledge and resources by managing requests for assistance and identifying the best person or group to respond.”
The Deepwater Horizon oil well, owned by British Petroleum (BP), exploded on April 20, 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 people.
Thus far every plan BP has performed to stop the oil from leaking has failed. Their latest attempt, a containment cap, has succeeded in slowing the flow. The latest estimates from BP show that the minimum oil loss from the well is between 500,000 and one million gallons a day, with the worst case scenario a loss of 10.5 million gallons per day.
On Wednesday June 2, BP said that they have recovered approximately 2.4 million gallons since they placed the containment cap on the ruptured well.
Oil from the Deepwater Horizon well has not reached Mississippi shores yet, according to the report.
According to a report on CNN, federal officials are giving BP a 72-hour deadline to present emergency oil collection plans to collect more oil as well as have back up should their current method become ineffective.