Developing sorbent standards for spill response: Effects of the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 and the Free Trade Agreement

For the past five years the Millsaps Sorbent Laboratory has been actively engaged in developing standards for initial and long-term oil spill remedial technologies. As a voting member of the American Society of Testing Materials (ASTM) F-20 Committee, Canadian General Standards Board, and the US Coast Guard Sorbents Task Force, the laboratory has been engaged in developing useful, pragmatic protocols for various chemical and physical sorbent and filtration technologies driven by the deadlines imposed by the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA 90). The open border approach to certification of technologies and products promulgated by the US/Canadian Free Trade Agreement has placed the US users and producers of such products and systems in a unique and tenuous position. Canadian standards and goals are grandfathered into the United States under this agreement and products have official US government certification based on Canadian regulations. This situation is unfavorable to the US domestic environment and economy for several specific scenarios. Included in these scenarios are: abundant warmwater zones and inland waters of the US versus Canada, the basic chemical variation between Canadian and US crude oils, the different generally accepted remediation technologies in the US versus Canadian, and the technology validation procedures prior to purchase inherent to both countries.