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www.sea-technology.com October 2015 / st 15 F ive years on from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, BP is still undergoing extensive work to assess and re- pair the damage caused by the sunken rig. Millions of gallons of crude oil were pumped into the sea over an 87-day period after the rig exploded and began to leak. As a result of what is labelled "the largest ever accidental marine oil spill", the Gulf of Mexico (GoM) sea became heavily polluted, which had a direct impact on marine habitats in the area. As part of the cleanup and repair process, BP has pledged $500 million over 10 years to support inde- pendent research through the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI), gulfresearchinitiative.org, into the ef- fects of oil spills on deepwater and coastal ecosystems. GoMRI was set up through an agreement between BP and the Gulf of Mexico Alliance, a nonproft partner- ship formed by the states of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas to address short- and long-term environmental issues. As of the end of 2014, four years into the pledge, GoMRI had awarded $315 million in research grants. LADC-GEMM The Littoral Acoustic Demonstration Center – Gulf Ecological Monitoring and Modeling (LADC-GEMM) consortium, www.ladcgemm.org, was one of 12 re- search teams to receive GoMRI consortium funding for studying the long-term impact of the 2010 oil spill on deep-diving marine mammals. This funding enables this study for two years until 2017. LADC has been carrying out research in the north- ern GoM for 14 years. The LADC-GEMM consortium is built on a partnership among universities, technology companies and industry. The academic partners are: the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, the University of New Orleans, the University of Southern Mississippi, and Oregon State University. The consortium employs technical exper- tise through collaboration with commercial organizations. Commercial organizations, working with the consortium, include Proteus Technologies, R2Sonic, ASV and Seiche Ltd. The consortium's main goals center on carrying out passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) in the vicinity of the Deepwa- ter Horizon accident site to determine trends in the marine mammal population and presence based on their acous- tic activity. The targeted species are sperm whales, beaked whales and dolphins. Processing of PAM data will look into determining the extent of the impacts on these endangered and federally protected species since the area became heav- ily polluted. ASVs for Passive Acoustic Monitoring Keeping Track of Marine Wildlife in the Gulf Post-Deepwater Horizon By Sarah Dyer • Chris Pierpoint • Dr. Natalia Sidorovskaia The C-Worker ASV.