In-Situ Burning of Oil in Coastal Marshes. 2. Oil Spill Cleanup Efficiency as a Function of Oil Type, Marsh Type, and Water Depth

Abstract

In-situ burning of spilled oil, which receives considerable attention in marine conditions, could be an effective way to cleanup wetland oil spills. An experimental in-situ burn was conducted to study the effects of oil type, marsh type, and water depth on oil chemistry and oil removal efficiency from the water surface and sediment. In-situ burning decreased the totaltargeted alkanes and total targeted polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in the burn residues as compared to the pre-burn diesel and crude oils. Removal was even more effective for short-chain alkanes and low ring-number PAHs. Removal efficiencies for alkanes and PAHs were >98% in terms of mass balance although concentrations of some long-chain alkanes and high ring-number PAHs increased in the burn residue as compared to the pre-burn oils. Thus, in-situ burning potentially prevents floating oil from drifting into and contaminating adjacent habitats and penetrating the sediment. In addition, in-situ burning significantly removed diesel oil that had penetrated the sediment for all water depths. Furthermore, in-situ burning at a water depth 2 cm below the soil surface significantly removed crude oil that had penetrated the sediment. As a result, in-situ burning may reduce the long-term impacts of oil on benthic organisms.

Phytoremediation potential and ecological and phenological changes of native pioneer plants from weathered oil spill-impacted sites at tropical wetlands

“…For example, in intact wetlands of Louisiana (USA), Spartina alternifolia dominated the salt marsh, while Spartina patens and Distichlis spicata codominated brackish marsh, and Saggitaria lancifolia dominated freshwater marsh (Mendelssohn et al 2002;Lin et al 2005a). However, in oil-contaminated wetlands after in-situ burning, the marshland was revegetated by S. lancifolia and other invasive species, such as Eleocharis fallax, Alternanthera philoxeroides, and Echinochloa crus-galli (Lin et al 2005b). Similarly, in our results, after disappearance of the native vegetation dominated by T. geniculata, C. papyrus, P. cordata, and T. latifolia (Rivera-Cruz et al 2004), new invasive pioneer species were established, from which the Cyperus genus showed the best capacity to grow and survive in the contaminated sites, which to our knowledge has not been reported before.…”

Oil spill cleanup by atmospheric distillation

“…This method does not reduce the amount of oil entering to the water and has long-term effects on marine ecosystem. In situ burning does not require collection of oil spill from water surface (Lin et al, 2005); however, it may increase the water temperature, which is harmful for animals and plants living around the burning area.…”

“…Oil spill treatment traditionally includes techniques such as oil adsorption, in situ burning, dispersion of oil, bioremediation, and gelling agent of oil (Zahid et al, 1972;Choi et al, 1993;Deschamps et al, 2003;Whitfield, 2003;Lin et al, 2005). The aforementioned methods have their own advantages and disadvantages.…”

Effect of autotrophic denitrification on nitrate migration in sulfide-rich marine sediments

“…Thus, great efforts have been made in recent years in exploring the effective remediation approaches for the decontamination of marine sediments (Coates et al 1996;Lessard and Demarco 2000;Lin et al 2005;Rocchetti et al 2010;Veetil et al 2013). Compared with conventional treatments, such as dredging and capping, in situ bioremediation with nitrate (NO 3 as aliphatic hydrocarbons (Hasinger et al 2012) or polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) (Macrae and Hall 1998;Lu et al 2011).…”