New and updated standards continue to help limit the damage of oil spills in our waterways.
By Donovan Swift
Jun 30, 2025
Oil spills are visually striking. Most of us can bring to mind the image of oil blackening the surface of the ocean or the image of a seagull covered in oil, struggling to fly. The Deepwater Horizon disaster dumped an estimated 134 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico and inspired a Hollywood movie, with explosions, burning oil rigs, and heroic rescues. These images are familiar to most of us, but – unfortunately – what happens after the oil spill is less so. Cleanup crews use various techniques and spend countless hours cleaning up oil spills for up to months at a time, sometimes years. And experts spend their days developing best practices for how to react to these spills safely and efficiently, as well as devising plans for how to limit a spill’s impact on marine and coastal environments. The work these crews and experts do is essential to limiting the damage created by an oil spill.
ASTM International’s committee on hazardous substances and oil spill response (F20) is dedicated to helping limit that damage. The committee covers many aspects of oil spills, from the control and removal of oil from oceans and freshwater to the mitigation of harm done to shoreline and coastal environments. “The F20 committee sets standards for the design, performance, and use of equipment to control and remove oil spills,” says Merv Fingas, chair of the subcommittee on in-situ burning (F20.15). “It sets standards for training and assessment related to oil and hazardous material spills.”
“The committee is devoted to all issues related to oil spill cleanup, including equipment selection, oil classification training, guides to classify oil spills, and guides for all the techniques used to clean them up,” adds Stephen Potter, a former chair of the committee. “And all the subcommittees are related to different facets of the response.”
Control
After a spill has occurred, containment is crucial. Containment booms, which act like fences around the surface oil, are a key tool used to minimize the spread and contain the oil. There are different booms for different water conditions, and the subcommittee on control (F20.11) created the standard guide for selection of booms in accordance with water body classifications (F1523), which helps determine which boom is best suited for each specific response. Potter says the standard is crucial but was difficult to pass. “It was quite a contentious standard at the time,” he says. “And there was a bit of back and forth, but we reached a consensus and are quite proud of that. And it's been around for quite a long time.” The standard has been active since 1994 and was updated in 2023, and it continues to help responders choose which boom to deploy based on “minimum physical dimensions, minimum buoyancy to weight ratios, and minimum tensile strengths for certain water bodies,” Potter says. The standard also considers flotation element length, wavelength, abrasion resistance, compatibility with fresh or salt water, and other factors.
READ MORE: Oil Spill Response Standards
During larger spills, booms are deployed in multiple sections that must be connected, so it’s crucial that their connections are seamless, consistent, and secure. The z-connector is a specific type of connection, which allows for some bending in rough water conditions, while offering a secure connection. The standard specification for oil spill response boom connection: z-connector (F962) sets the design criteria for these connectors, including minimum mating characteristics and minimum tensile strength.
“The standard stands out to me because it came as an early standard when there were few consistencies in oil spill equipment,” Fingas says. “It came at a time when every boom manufacturer made their own connector. This meant that booms could not be interconnected between manufacturers and often a response organization could not connect between the booms that it held in its own inventory. The z-connector is economical and solved a lot of interconnection problems.”
Removal
Once the booms have been deployed, and the oil has been contained as much as possible, the process moves toward removing the oil. There are several techniques used to remove oil, but most – if not all – oil spill cleanups rely heavily on the use of skimmers. There are several different types of skimmers, but most involve the use of a boat towing a floating skimmer, which is “designed to remove thin layers of oil from the surface,” according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The skimmer removes the oil from the water, and the oil is then stored and removed on a barge or similar vessel.
The subcommittee on removal (F20.12) has multiple standards regarding skimmers, including selecting which skimmer to deploy for a particular spill response (F1778), collecting skimmer performance data in controlled environments (F631), and the oil recovery rate of stationary skimmers (F2709). All of which help responders choose the most efficient equipment for the job and allow manufacturers to accurately test their equipment in controlled and real-world settings, which helps them create the best product for the specific job.
"F2709 is one of several standards quantifying skimmer performance,” Fingas says. “These standards are important to ensure that skimmer systems are correctly identified with their recovery capacity. In years gone by, the recovery capacity was often exaggerated, leading to overly optimistic expectations for spill cleanup. Realistic skimmer performance values have greatly improved cleanup expectations.”
The standard guide for testing advancing skimming systems (F3724) is a recent standard that allows for the testing of advancing skimming systems. These skimming systems are designed to move through the water at speeds greater than 0.4 m/s (.75 knots). This can greatly increase the quantity of oil that can be “encountered” by the skimmer for recovery. This guide can provide inputs into the U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement’s (BSEE) Estimated Recovery System Potential (ERSP) calculator to estimate the performance of advancing skimming systems for each of the first three days of an instantaneous batch oil spill. This information can aid in the planning for a large spill and assist in the equipment selection.
“Previous standards have addressed recovery rates for stationary skimmers,” says Vince Mitchell, incident commander with the Washington State Maritime Cooperative and a producer vice-chair of the oil spill response committee. “This standard sets out the parameters for testing advancing skimming systems. Prior to this, manufacturers would test their skimmers to the stationary skimming systems standard and attempt to extrapolate from there.” The more specific testing helps manufacturers get more reliable data for the performance of advancing skimming systems, which allows for a more refined cleanup device.
Another technique used during the removal stage of the oil spill response is in-situ burning, which is a controlled burning of the oil at the site of the spill within a fire-resistant boom. The subcommittee on in-situ burning sets the standard guide for in-situ burning of oil spills on water: environmental and operational considerations (F1788), which covers all the considerations of using in-situ burning. The standard “gives you guidance on when to use in-situ burning, what equipment you might need, and the safety factors to consider,” Potter says.
Calm winds and waters must be present for in-situ burning to be an option, and the surface oil must be thicker than 1-2 mm, but the technique can be very effective. According to the NOAA, “When conducted properly, in-situ burning significantly reduces the amount of oil on the water and minimizes the adverse effect of the oil on the environment.”
In-situ burning requires the oil to be corralled within a fire-resistant boom that can withstand temperatures exceeding 1,100°C (2,000°F). According to Fingas, this makes the standard guide for in-situ burning of spilled oil: fire-resistant boom (F2152) essential. “The standard describes minimum requirements for a fire-resistant boom,” he says. “This standard is also a unique standard in that it was developed during the development of a series of burn tests. This enabled a very realistic standard to be developed. This enabled several inadequate fire booms to be screened out and ensured confidence in the technique of in-situ burning.”
All of which has real-world application. Fingas says that “this technique and its result played an important role during the Deepwater Horizon spill during which more than 400 burns removed about 44,000 m3 or 275,000 barrels of oil from the water, saving a great deal of shoreline pollution.”
The minimum requirements set by this standard proved to be crucial in the field. “The results were borne out during that Gulf of Mexico spill response,” Potter says. “The two booms that performed very well in that spill response were the only two booms that had passed that testing program, and the other booms that did not pass, failed in the field.”
There is some concern about the harmful emissions and airborne particulates created from the burning of oil, but most studies suggest that the smoke and particulates created by in-situ burning have less impact on the surrounding environment than the oil itself would have if left to evaporate. According to the NOAA, “Based upon our limited experience, birds and mammals are more capable of handling the risk of a local fire and temporary smoke plume than of handling the risk posed by a spreading oil slick.”
Mitigation
The mitigation subcommittee (F20.22) deals with other technologies and techniques for cleaning up oil spills, such as sorbents, which are used to adsorb liquid and can help remove residual oil left behind by skimmers. “Sorbents are commonly used as both a polishing step following bulk oil removal of larger spills, and for dealing with small, isolated spills,” says David Cooper, chair of the mitigation subcommittee. “The main protocol for sorbent use on spills of crude oil is the standard test method for sorbent performance of adsorbents for use on crude oil and related spills (F726).”
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A new standard is also under development for the determination of sorbent performance of full-size adsorbents for use on crude oil and related spills (WK93609). This standard, being developed by the subcommittee on mitigation, “is being created to address issues with testing small sample coupons that may not be completely representative of a larger sorbent sheet or pad due to a variety of reasons.” Cooper says. “This protocol is being developed to complement F726 and will provide a method to evaluate sorbent performance at full scale.”
Shoreline Countermeasures
A major part of the spill response is dealing with the cleanup of oil that has impacted the coastal ecosystem and shoreline, and the subcommittee on shoreline and inland countermeasures (F20.17) is dedicated to making standards that address this stage of the response.
Potter says that the standard guide for surveys to document and assess oiling conditions (F1686) and the standard guide for terminology and indices to describe oiling conditions on shorelines and other terrain (F1687) are essential starting points for the shoreline cleanup process.
“One of the fundamental issues people have with shoreline cleanup is having inexperienced people documenting the shoreline condition and oiling condition on the shoreline,” Potter says. “Those two standards are both a guide for surveying and documenting and terminology, so that everyone's using the same terms to describe the degree of shoreline oiling, which dictates the required countermeasures.”
Once the shoreline oiling has been properly surveyed, the standard guide for cleaning of various oiled shorelines and habitats (F2464) functions as a guide to help select which techniques to use. Each shoreline is unique, and so is each oil spill. The guide helps differentiate techniques based on the relative needs of each shoreline, including the shoreline type, the biological diversity and vulnerability of the shoreline, the exposure to tides, and other factors.
New and Developing Standards
The committee is always developing standards to help improve the oil spill response process, to help limit the impact on the environment, and to make equipment more efficient. The subcommittee on surveillance and tracking (F20.16) is currently developing a new test method for measuring the evaporation rate of oils and petroleum (WK92298). “This standard details the measurement procedures to create an equation that accurately results in the calculation of evaporation at various temperatures,” Fingas says. “This greatly improves prediction of evaporation and is important to oil spill modelling.”
Similarly, the new guide for decanting of oil/water mixtures (WK67768), developed by the subcommittee on removal, “will address the process of maximization of oil retention during a spill,” Mitchell says. “All skimmers recover a mixture of oil and water that is pumped into a temporary storage device for ultimate disposal. Decanting is the process of allowing the recovered water (from the oil/water mixture) to settle out and is then pumped out of the temporary storage device back into the water. This maximizes the on-scene oil storage capacity and allows oil recovery to continue when it might otherwise cease. In many jurisdictions, decanting is a regulatory permitted activity requiring making an application. This standard, based on research, testing, and experience, will provide regulators and spill mangers with a methodology to reach a decision.”
Future Spills
Luckily, oil spills have become less and less common around U.S. waterways, thanks largely to the Oil Pollution Act, which Congress passed in the aftermath of the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill. As Potter explains, the legislation required that all tankers now have a double-hull structure, which helps significantly reduce the risk of a spill, even if the outer hull of the tanker is damaged. “This and other related components have drastically reduced oil spills,” Potter says. But accidents still happen, like the Deepwater Horizon disaster, and spills still occur, especially in other parts of the world. So, the committee is continuing to develop standards to hone the spill-response process.
Groundbreaking new technologies might not be on the horizon, but techniques are always being fine-tuned. As Potter says, “There's nothing new under the sun, but refinements of existing technologies” are always happening, and the committee is continuing to help the world be well-prepared for the next spill.
July / August 2025
