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40 MN April 2011 In his 81 years, David Usher has contributed a great deal to the evolving field of marine spill response and recovery. He founded the Spill Control Association of America (SCAA) in 1973 and remains active in the group as President Emeritus. He is also the founder and Chairman of Marine Pollution Control Corporation (MPC), one of the founders of the American Salvage Association (ASA) and founder and president of the International Spill Control Organization (ISCO) out of the UK. Usher’s first experience in the business began with his father who started working in environmental response in 1929. But it was not an established profession at that time, Usher said. “I’d been a kid in the Coast Guard when there was only one law for pollution on navigable waters.” That law had been established in the 1800s and had to do with dumping refuge. “The Coast Guard wasn’t even involved.” Usher traced the marine spill response and recovery industry’s real beginnings to the 1960s. He cited the spill following the grounding of the Torrey Canyon off Lands End in England in 1967 and the publication of the book Silent Spring, by Rachel Carson in 1962, as “essential motivators of the pollution era which got everyone think- ing.” The marine spill response industry developed out of necessity, Usher said. The world industrialized, but we hadn’t come to terms with how to handle the fall out from all that industry. As we began to realize the environmen- tal consequences of moving chemical and petroleum products around, the spill response industry had to take shape and that included developing industry standards, rules and regulations. “People would use absorbents to try to pick up oil and in the early days this was straw. Now there are more sophisticated absorption materials which are easier to han- dle and will pick up more and retain it.” Market Report Marine Spill Response & Recovery Industry Pioneer David Usher David Usher, SCAA founder and MPC founder and chairman. MPC, with the help of its partner SEAmagine, is testing a new method for submerged oil recovery in the Rouge River, Detroit, Mich. The sub pilot is showing the controls to Dave Usher prior to a test dive. Photos courtesy Marine Pollution Control Corporation
