Dispersion and weathering of chemically treated crude oils on the ocean

McAuliffe, Clayton D.; Johnson, Jaret C.; Greene, Stephen H.; Canevari, Gerard P.; Searl, T.D.

doi:10.1021/es60172a012

Cited by 62 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…However, the droplets formed in these particular preparations are still important to study as droplets smaller than about 3 µm will remain suspended in the water column for extended periods of time and may be associated to important environmental processes (McAuliffe et al, 1980;North et al, 2011). Small droplets can further influence the stability and composition of the exposure media used for toxicology testing.…”

Section: Droplet Characterizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Physical and Chemical Characterization of Crude Oil-Water Mixtures: Understanding the Effects of Interfacial Process to Chemical Bioavailability

Sandoval¹

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Section: Droplet Characterizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Physical and Chemical Characterization of Crude Oil-Water Mixtures: Understanding the Effects of Interfacial Process to Chemical Bioavailability

Sandoval¹

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“…A low-viscosity oil (like the Macondo well oil) is expected to have an average thickness on the sea surface of 0.1 mm (Lehr et al, 1984). Dispersed oil plumes continue to dilute with time, and dispersed oil at sea is estimated to become very dilute in less than a day (French McCay and Payne, 2001;French McCay et al, 2006;Cormack and Nichols, 1977;McAuliffe et al, 1980). This results in immediate dilution by a factor of 10,000 to give an average hydrocarbon concentration of 100 mg/L.…”

Section: Environmental Aspects Biodegradationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The available data suggest that maximum dispersed oil concentrations after a spill are less than 50 mg/L immediately after dispersion and drop to 1 -2 mg/L in less than 2 hours (Cormack and Nichols, 1977;McAuliffe et al, 1980;Daling and Indrebo, 1996). The available data suggest that maximum dispersed oil concentrations after a spill are less than 50 mg/L immediately after dispersion and drop to 1 -2 mg/L in less than 2 hours (Cormack and Nichols, 1977;McAuliffe et al, 1980;Daling and Indrebo, 1996).…”

Section: Environmental Aspects Biodegradationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Value of Dispersants for Offshore Oil Spill Response

2012

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Oil spill response strategies are designed to minimize environmental impacts tothe extent possible. Each response option must be evaluated for operationallimitations (e.g., sea state), potential effectiveness, environmental impactsof the response option itself, and applicability under various oil spillscenarios (e.g., size and location of the spill) in addition to health andsafety of the responders. Although mechanical recovery is often favored for its ability to directlyremove oil from the environment, it has long been recognized that for largeoffshore spills this technology has significant limitations. In addition toknown operational limits in the presence of currents and waves, thedynamic-nature of offshore oil slicks, i.e., rapid spreading and movement, hasresulted in mechanical recovery only treating a small fraction of spilled oilin the past. Because of these limitations, the oil and gas industry has workedto develop alternative response tools that can be used in addition tomechanical recovery to more effectively treat large offshore oil spills. This paper provides a review of the primary oil spill response options, adetailed discussion that addresses misperceptions and misunderstandings aboutdispersants and their use, and a description of dispersant use during theDeepwater Horizon incident including the important health and safety aspects ofsubsea dispersant injection. The information provided will support the use ofdispersants as a primary response tool for large offshore oil spills when thegoal is to minimize environmental harm. Introduction The primary goal of any oil spill response operation should be to minimizeenvironmental harm. Although one expectation may be the complete physicalcontainment and removal of oil from the environment, this is often not possible(especially with large offshore spills) due to physical limitations ofmechanical recovery systems. In fact, recovery operations during previousoffshore spills only collected a small fraction of the spilled oil even underideal conditions (ITOPF Handbook, 2010). The Deepwater Horizon incident was noexception, with estimates indicating that only 3% of the oil was mechanicallyrecovered (NOAA Oil Budget, 2010). Relying solely on mechanical responsemeasures for large offshore spills may, therefore, result in less effectiveprotection of the environment. Recognition of the significant limitations of mechanical recovery has led todevelopment of alternative response tools—one of which is oil spilldispersants. Oil spill dispersants facilitate removal of oil from theenvironment by enhancing the natural biodegradation process. Dispersantsrapidly break up a surface slick into micron-sized droplets that move into thewater column. This provides naturally occurring oil degrading bacteria greateraccess to the oil by creating a dilute mixture of oil-in-water rather than athick surface accumulation. Fortunately, oil degrading bacteria are present inall marine environments, having evolved to degrade oil released by naturalseeps (Margesin and Schinner, 2001; Prince and Clark, 2004). Dispersed oil rapidly dilutes (French McCay and Payne, 2001; French McCay etal., 2006; McAuliffe et al., 1980; Cormack and Nichols, 1977; Daling andIndrebo, 1996), and concentrations above known toxicity thresholds do notpersist for more than a few hours after effective dispersant application. Thusthe potential for acute impacts to the environment from dispersed oil islimited in duration and space. In contrast, a surface slick has the potentialto impact marine mammals and birds for many days and strand on sensitiveshorelines. The most sensitive areas in many marine environments are marinemarshes and swamps. These areas can take years to decades to recover (Sell etal., 1993) once impacted by surface slicks.

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“…The ANS oil had a total n-alkanes fraction of 55 mg/g of TSEM, while the BC-1 and BC-2 samples were found to have only 6.4 and 6.6 mg/g of TSEM respectively. The GC chromatograms of the tarball samples ( Figure 2) show that all the n-alkanes lighter than n-C 14 had been lost and higher molecular weight n-alkanes were also depleted as compared to ANS, which indicates that the tarballs were highly weathered [24][25].…”

Section: Product Type Screen and Determination Of Aliphatic Hydrocarbonsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identification and Linkage of Tarballs from the Coasts of Vancouver Island and Northern California Using GC/MS and Isotopic Techniques

Wang

Fingas²,

Landriault

et al. 1998

J. High Resol. Chromatogr.

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Dispersion and weathering of chemically treated crude oils on the ocean

Cited by 62 publications

References 5 publications

Physical and Chemical Characterization of Crude Oil-Water Mixtures: Understanding the Effects of Interfacial Process to Chemical Bioavailability

Physical and Chemical Characterization of Crude Oil-Water Mixtures: Understanding the Effects of Interfacial Process to Chemical Bioavailability

The Value of Dispersants for Offshore Oil Spill Response

Identification and Linkage of Tarballs from the Coasts of Vancouver Island and Northern California Using GC/MS and Isotopic Techniques

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