A&M RESEARCHERS HELPING IN GALVESTON OIL SPILL

  

With the opening of ferry services in Galveston late Monday, Antonietta Quigg, a Texas A&M Galveston marine biology professor, said she was hopeful she and other scientists with the university would be able to board research vessels today (Tuesday),  to begin their sampling work.

The team of researchers, asked by the U.S. Coast Guard to conduct the sampling, will test samples to determine how up to 168,000 gallons of oil released when a barge collided into a ship in the Houston Ship Channel is like to impact marine life.

Quigg said her focus will be on the water quality and plankton, while other researchers will turn their attention to various parts of the underwater ecosystem.

In College Station, A&M researchers were receiving near real time information on currents, waves and winds from a buoy deployed near the oil spill site as part of the Texas Automated Buoy System, a program sponsored by the Texas General Land Officve and managed by the Texas A&M Geochemical and Enviromental Research Group.   The data will be analyzed  to create oil models to determine where the oil is likely to spread which could help crews contain it.