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By Anne Thrower, Naval Air Station Pensacola Public Affairs
PENSACOLA, Fla. (NNS) -- The crew of the U.S. Coast Guard cutter USCGC Oak (WLB-211) tested its oil spill recovery system May 3 before leaving Naval Air Station (NAS) Pensacola, Fla., May 4 to assist in oil spill operations in the Gulf of Mexico.
"We're going to try and go where the oil is heaviest - that's the strategy," said Cmdr. Michael Glander, Oak's commanding officer.
Oak Coast Guardsmen are responding to the aftermath of the April 20 British Petroleum/Transocean's Deepwater Horizon drilling rig incident in the Gulf of Mexico.
NAS Pensacola is one of five staging areas established from Louisiana to Florida for the oil spill operations. Other staging areas are in Biloxi and Pascagoula, Miss.; Venice, La.; and Theodore, Ala.; in support of containment and cleanup efforts.
"I think we are doing well," said Capt. Christopher Plummer, NAS Pensacola's commanding officer. "The entire team is onboard and working together to do whatever we can."
Oak departed NAS Pensacola May 4, and USCGC Cypress (WLB-210), which frequently uses NAS Pensacola as a base of operations, is scheduled to leave May 5. Both Cypress and Oak are scheduled to join another Coast Guard cutter to assist in oil spill clean up operations.
The 50-member Oak crew was transiting to Charleston, S.C., when the vessel was diverted to NAS Pensacola to assist in take part in in oil spill clean up operations.
While the multimission cutter normally fixes and maintains navigational buoys and beacons along the coast of South Carolina through the Caribbean, Coast Guardsmen also train to recover oil, although this is the first time the crew will be performing that mission, said Glander.
The oil-skimming gear sits on the surface of the water as it collects oil and pumps it to "floating bladders," which can hold about 75,000 gallons of the oil and water mixture. The bladders are then emptied onto a barge, at which point the oil is separated from the water.
The cutter can pump as much as 400 gallons a minute, but how fast the oil comes off the surface depends how thick it is and how effective the operators can use the skimmer, said Glander.
"Recovery efforts are always dependent on the weather," said Glander. "The flatter and calmer the sea is, the more oil and more quickly you can cover it."
Daren Beaudo, a spokesman for BP, told about two dozen media members May 3 that BP still didn't know the cause of the fire and the explosion.
"We're working as hard as we can to get the source under control," said Beaudo. "We can't have a lot of ocean-going vehicles when the seas are so rough. "But we are still in action."
That action includes preparing to mobilize approximately 275,000 feet of boom from Mississippi to Florida.
"We are going to try and recover as much oil as we can," Glander said.