Andrew J. Pershing
Gulf of Maine Research Institute
350 Commercial St.
Portland, ME 04101
607.255.5552
andrew.pershing@maine.edu

Portland is the third largest oil terminal port in the United States, a major portion of the oil arriving in New England comes through Maine. To enter these ports, tankers must traverse some of the most lucrative fishing grounds in the world and pass by fragile wetland and salt marsh habitats. The potential impacts of an oil spill in Maine were made abundantly clear during the 1996 spill of the Julie N in Portland Harbor.

Oil spill response and planning requires detailed information on the movements of the top few centimeters of the ocean. This project aims to develop and evaluate shore-based digital photography as a tool for oil spill planning and response. Pershing will develop a low-cost system for monitoring surface conditions (and collecting images of surface slicks) using shore-based digital photography, and evaluate image processing algorithms for automatically identifying slicks and tracking their movements. These data will identify dominant convergence and slick patterns and their weather/tide/season association for Portland Harbor. Images from a shore-based digital camera will be georectified to provide a simulated, almost real-time aerial view of the harbor. The cost and feasibility of deploying the system in Maine’s major oil ports will be evaluated.

MOSAC-05-01 Assessment of nursery habitats in Casco Bay
MOSAC-04-01 Observations of tidal, subtidal, and seasonable variability in Casco Bay circulation
MOSAC-03-03 A field study of circulation patterns in Cobscook Bay