The Louisiana oil spill Geographic Information System
Jay Arnold
3001, Inc., 3655 SW 2ndAvenue, Suite 3C
Gainesville, Florida 32607
David Gisclair
Louisiana Oil Spill Coordinator's Office
1885 Wooddale Boulevard, 12ti Floor
Baton Rouge, LA 70803
Introduction
The first oil well in Louisiana was drilled in 1901. To date, about 209,000 wells have been
drilled on land and offshore across Louisiana, and approximately 20% of the United States
domestic oil supply is produced in Louisiana. In the last 15 years, the Louisiana Offshore Oil
Port (LOOP) offloaded 3.5 billion barrels of foreign crude oil from 3350 tankers. These tankers
and barges traverse Louisiana rivers and other waterways daily transporting the world's oil.
Today, it is nearly impossible to travel across Louisiana without seeing oil-related activity.
There is no question that Louisiana's oil is crucial to the state's economy. Unfortunately, oil
spills can be both environmentally and economically disastrous. When the 1990 Oil Pollution
Act (OPA 90) was passed as a direct response by our nation's government to Alaska's Exxon
Valdez disaster, Louisiana had the foresight to create the Louisiana Oil Spill Coordinator's
Office (LOSCO). In conjunction with OPA 90, Louisiana's Legislature passed ACT 740, the
Louisiana Oil Spill Prevention and Response Act, to set state regulations that complement and
extend OPA 90 regulations.
ACT 740 mandates the development of a statewide oil spill contingency plan to prepare
Louisiana for the ever-present possibility of oil spills. Specifically, ACT 740 states that "an
environmental baseline inventory shall be developed and maintained in such a manner that it will
provide the coordinator with the technical data regarding the coastal waters before, during, and
after an unauthorized discharge of oil." Because geographic location of physical and cultural
features is extremely important for oil spill planning and response, LOSCO determined that a
geographic information system (GIS) is the best method for compiling, storing, retrieving, and
analyzing the data required for this mandate.
Study Area
The project study area is the coastal waters of Louisiana, defined in state law R.S. 30:2454(2) as
"the water and bed of the Gulf of Mexico within the jurisdiction of the State of Louisiana,
including the arms of the Gulf of Mexico subject to tidal influence, estuaries, and any other
waters within the state if such other waters are navigated by vessels with a capacity to carry ten
thousand gallons or more of oil as fiel or cargo." The major navigable waterways included in
the study area are the Mississippi River, the Atchafalaya Navigation Channel, the Red River, and
the Ouachita/Black River. However, oil spills can occur throughout the state, not just these
coastal waters. Therefore, LOSCO's contractor is creating new data sets and incorporating
existing data sets that address the entire state where applicable.
Major Logis Data Sets
LOGIS provides relevant information for oil spill planning, response, and natural resource
damage assessment. As a result, it is proving to be a comprehensive database housing for the first
time a vast array of information in a single location. But the task wasn't easy. The challenge was
this: to gather multitudes of scattered data, create multitudes of nonexistent data, organize all of
it, and make it available to LOSCO twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Much of the
information needed existed, but it was scattered across the state and in different sources.
Therefore, data had to be accessed and organized in a form readily accessible by LOSCO. As
well, any required data not already in existence had to be collected.
The GIS data sets required for LOGIS fell under ten categories:
- Base Map Layers
- Transportation Systems
- Protected Areas
- Sensitive Environments
- Potential Oil Spill Locations
- Ocean Currents
- Historical Hurricane Tracks
- Location of Monitoring Points
- Remedial Action Facilities
- Major and Minor Oil Spill Data
Because of the approach LOSCO and its contractors took to acquire them, three of these data sets
are of particular interest. They are the base map layers, including color infrared Digital
Orthophotography Quarter Quadrangles and feature locations; location of monitoring points,
including baseline sampling and analysis; and potential oil spill locations, including pit and barge
studies.
