Tuesday, June 29, 2010, 9:54am PDT | Modified: July 2, 2010, 10:23 AM

Oregon companies pitch in to clean up the Gulf

by Lee van der Voo
Sustainable Business Oregon

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The Clean Harbors boom being readied for deployment on Dauphin Island, Ala.

Four Oregon companies are part of the cleanup effort in the Gulf of Mexico, following the Deep Horizon oil leak and spill that began April 21.

Included in the mix are BELFOR Environmental Services, NWFF Environmental, Shaw Environmental and National Response Corporation Environmental Services. All of the companies have offices in Oregon.

BELFOR Environmental Services is based in Denver with 190 employees in five other offices around the nation, including one in Portland. The company provides spill response and remediation services and also excavates contaminated soil.

John Peterson, senior response manager for BELFOR, said the company has positioned workers and equipment in Florida should oil begin to wash up on the Florida coast. BELFOR made similar preparations in Biloxi, Miss., though that area does not appear to be under threat.

Asked about the opportunities for environmental contractors in the Gulf, particularly for companies in Oregon, Peterson said an oil spill of this magnitude outstrips local resources for cleanup and support is likely to come from companies that make a play for the work.

"The Gulf has tremendous capacity for clean up in of its own," Peterson explained, saying companies that provide cleanup services often site in areas where spills are likely. Many such companies are located in the Gulf area, he said.

The magnitude of the BP spill, however, has overwhelmed the large number of local contractors already prepared for cleanup work, allowing companies like BELFOR to move in.

"We have contracts with a couple of the big, prime contractors and if the situation were to move to the beach (in Florida), we have the capacity to train and deploy about 1,000 to 1,500 workers," said Peterson.

Peterson said BELFOR, which does not disclose revenue, would use local labor before reaching outside the region for workers. He expects to provide training to unemployed fishermen and other workers left idle because of the spill.

Peterson said its typical to train labor because workers with expertise in oil spills are few, with the workforce thinning since the 1970s and 1980s, when such spills were more common.

"Now that we don’t have many spills, where do you get the experience?" he said.

In the case of NWFF Environmental, an Oregon firm based in Philomath, that company made arrangements with the Oregon Employment Department in early May to train and certify unemployed Oregonians to assist with Gulf clean up.

According to a news release, the company deployed a percentage of its workforce to the Gulf immediately following the Deepwater Horizon spill. Officials there could not be reached for comment about how many workers they will train and deploy to assist.

As more companies and laborers move into the Gulf, some will fall under the direction of larger firms that are managing cleanup work.

Shaw Environmental is responsible for overall project management and construction of sand berms in the Gulf, through a contract by the state of Louisiana's Office of Coastal Protection and Restoration.

The Fortune 500 company is headquartered in Baton Rouge, La. It has 28,000 employees in 150 offices around the world, including an office in Portland. Shaw Environmental posted annual revenues of $7.3 billion in fiscal year 2009.

"Clearly we are one of the biggest consultants engaged in the assessment and cleanup of the spill. Certainly there are others but we’re one of a few that are doing large efforts there, not only engaged in the (cleanup) effort but also in protection when the storm surges come in this fall," said David Rankin, a principal with Shaw Environmental based in Portland.

Rankin said a manager from the Portland office is also involved with the Gulf project, brought in for skills acquired while managing debris cleanup after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

National Response Corporation Environmental Services is also involved in the oil spill response. The company has supplied two response barges and six skimming ships. Headquartered in New York, NRC has offices in Portland and in the Seattle area. Employees from the Portland office are currently on standby for possible deployment to the Gulf.

The company is a subsidiary of SEACOR Holdings Inc., a multinational company that provides services to offshore oil and gas industries, and also serves marine and aviation transportation industries. Headquartered in Ft. Lauderdale, SEACOR has more than 5,000 employees worldwide and a net annual income of $143.8 million. The company already has several thousand workers in the Gulf.

Those workers are providing decontamination services outside of a port in Mobile, Alabama, as well as logistical support, command and control support, and skimming support to other vessels involved in the cleanup effort.

Lee van der Voo, lvdvoo*at*gmail.com, is a freelance writer for Sustainable Business Oregon.