POLICY-RELEVANT RESEARCH AT THE USGS: AN EXAMPLE FROM THE GULF OIL SPILL

The USGS cannot afford to be anything but policy relevant. With the annual process of having to justify the agency budget to policy makers through annual appropriations, every scientific program is carefully examined for its relevance to address issues that matter to Americans, such as providing clean water, plentiful energy, supplies of raw materials, healthy ecosystems, reduced exposure to natural hazards, and a sustainable environment. Every once in a while, the agency is challenged to deploy its talent in new ways under extreme circumstances. Such a example occurred recently when USGS researchers were called to respond to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Basic geoscientific and biological skills had to be used in entirely new ways to stem the flow of oil and protect the environment. For example, remote sensing specialists pioneered new airborne tools to measure the volume of oil on the ocean surface, taking simple maps of spill area into the third dimension. Bureau seismologists and a hydrologist had to develop new tools to conduct an ongoing assessment of well integrity after the Macondo well was capped and sealed, at a time of grave skepticism of the physical state of the well to hold pressure. "Policy relevance" took on an entirely new meaning for these scientists when they knew that the only thing keeping the valve shut on 50,000 barrels per day of crude oil from rushing into the Gulf was their ability to convince two cabinet secretaries and a 4-star admiral that they could monitor and constrain well integrity.