For years, people have been concerned about pollution in New Bedford (MA) Harbor, with a "red flag" raised over what human beings and water treatment plants might be dumping into the bay. A recently completed study of water quality in New Bedford Harbor, commissioned by the New Bedford Harbor Trustee Council and conducted by Applied Science Associates (ASA), took a new approach to evaluate sources contributing pollution to the harbor. The study combined a field sampling program and computer modeling with DNA fingerprinting analysis to identify and quantify sources contributing fecal coliform (FC) to the waters of Outer New Bedford Harbor.[MORE INFO]

 

NARRAGANSETT, RI, Mar. --The United States Coast Guard will soon be using a faster, more accurate computer system to track and predict the location of floating and drifting objects.
The new computer model, called SAROPS (Search and Rescue Optimal Planning System), has significant potential to improve the Coast Guard's ability to save lives and property by speeding the identification of the location of people and boats lost at sea.[MORE INFO]

 

Since September 11, the burgeoning field of homeland security has upped the demand for more sophisticated GIS technology to assess environmental and security risks and vulnerabilities.

Applied Science Associates (ASA) just announced major improvements to computer models to now allow existing ESRI GIS users to seamlessly activate complex sophisticated predictive numerical models and evaluate hazards based on existing GIS databases.[MORE INFO]

 

Eoin Howlett of Newport, chief executive officer and principal of Applied Science Associates of Narragansett, is leading his company's development of an advance computer model that will help the Coast Guard more quickly locate people and vessels missing at sea. [MORE INFO]

 

Applied Science Associates, a Narragansett company that uses computer models to forecast how and where an oil spill will spread. The company’s modeling system takes myriad data – currents, tides, weather patterns, wind speed and direction, water temperature and salinity – and crunches them together, rendering a three-dimensional map of a spill. The result is a Windows-based, real-time system to monitor oil spills and predict their movement. [MORE INFO]

 

FISHERMEN lost off the Queensland coast in future may owe their lives to a fashion dummy and a new computer software program. And they can thank fourth-year coastal engineering student Nathan Benfer and Asia-Pacific Applied Science Associates director Sasha Zigic, who last week startedground-breaking research off the Gold Coast. [MORE INFO]

 

The Coast Guard's ability to respond effectively to search and rescue calls, oil and chemical spills, and a wide variety of homeland security issues depends a great deal on local weather and marine conditions. The shipping industry, environmental managers, fishing fleets, and the Navy also rely on such information. [MORE INFO]

Two miles beneath the waves of the Atlantic Ocean, off Spain's west coast, the sunken tanker Prestige continues to leak 32,000 gallons of oil a day, a month after it broke in two and descended to the ocean floor. Now European officials must decide whether it's riskier to let about 16 million gallons stay there and seep out gradually, or to try to remove it, said Malcolm L. Spaulding, a professor of ocean engineering at the University of Rhode Island and an oil-spill specialist. [MORE INFO]

 

Applied Science Associates Inc. (ASA), will celebrate 20 years of business, during which the firm of 16 people has worked in over 50 countries and on every continent. [MORE INFO]

Fish or Oil: Environmental controversy over Caspian Sea oil
Contact: Eric Anderson / Nicole Whittier
Phone: 401-789-6224

Summary:

• With exploratory drilling in the North Caspian Sea scheduled to begin in two months, mistrust characterizes the dialogue between oil and environmental groups, reports industry expert Eric Anderson.
• Yet, the dialogue itself is an accomplishment given the sociopolitical history of the area which, until recently, would have prevented such an exchange.
• U.S. experience along with new technologies may hold solutions to this stalemate (see attached observations from Eric Anderson, who recently returned from working in Atyrau, Kazakhstan). [MORE INFO]

Technology pertaining to environmental impact assessment is evolving, both in the standard of information available and in the distribution of that information. Companies worldwide are trying to attain the latest developments that will improve, environmentally, the services they specialize in. [MORE INFO]