The University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science in Baltimore, Md., has been awarded $150,000 to study the effects of dispersants and dispersed oil on the commercially important blue crab, a keystone species of the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic coast, and its larvae. A female blue crab (Callinectes sapidus) is pictured here on a beach on Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay. (NOAA)
Earlier this year I wrote about NOAA making funding available to study the effects of chemical dispersants on the marine environment. NOAA partnered with the Coastal Response Research Center at the University of New Hampshire to make a formal call for research project proposals.
We received 36 proposals from researchers and universities across the U.S. and Canada and even a few from scientists in Europe. Those proposals were peer-reviewed this past summer and early fall, and while there were lots of great proposals, only three research projects could be selected for funding.
Developing a worldwide quantitative database of the toxicological effects of dispersants and chemically dispersed oil.
Conducting research to improve understanding of chronic impacts of chemical dispersant and chemically dispersed oil on blue crabs, a commercially important species of marine life.
Researching public concerns and improving risk communication tools for oil spills and dispersants.
Over the next year we’ll get progress reports from the researchers, and all of the materials will be available online at the University of New Hampshire’s website.
Oil sheen is visible on the waters of Arthur Kill on the border of New Jersey and New York in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. (NOAA)
[UPDATED NOVEMBER 6, 2012] Hurricane Sandy’s extreme weather conditions—80 to 90 mph winds and sea levels more than 14 feet above normal—spread oil, hazardous materials, and debris across waterways and industrial port areas along the Mid Atlantic. NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration is working with the U.S. Coast Guard and affected facilities to reduce the impacts of this pollution in coastal New York and New Jersey.
We have several Scientific Support Coordinators and information management specialists on scene at the incident command post on Staten Island, N.Y.
Since the pollution response began, we have been dispatching observers in helicopters with the Coast Guard to survey the resulting oil sheens on the water surface in Arthur Kill, N.J./N.Y. This is in support of the response to a significant spill at the Motiva Refinery in Sewarren, N.J., as well as for the cleanup and assessment of several small spills of diesel fuel, biodiesel, and various other petroleum products scattered throughout northern New Jersey’s refinery areas.
One of the challenges facing communities after a devastating weather event is information management. One tool we have developed for this purpose is ERMA, an online mapping tool which integrates and synthesizes various types of environmental, geographic, and operational data. This provides a central information hub for all individuals involved in an incident, improves communication and coordination among responders, and supplies resource managers with the information necessary to make faster and better informed decisions.
ERMA has now been adopted as the official common operational platform for the Hurricane Sandy pollution response, and we have sent additional GIS specialists to the command post.
Species and Habitats at Risk
The most sensitive habitats in the area are salt marshes, which are often highly productive and are important wildlife habitat and nursery areas for fish and shellfish. Though thin sheens contain little oil, wind and high water levels after the storm could push the diesel deep into the marsh, where it could persist and contaminate sediments. Because marshes are damaged easily during cleanup operations, spill response actions will have to take into account all of these considerations.
In addition, diesel spills can kill the many small invertebrates at the base of the food chain which live in tidal flats and salt marshes if they are exposed to a high enough concentration. Resident marsh fishes, which include bay anchovy, killifish, and silversides, are the fish most at risk because they are the least mobile and occupy shallow habitats. Many species of heron nest in the nearby inland marshes, some of the last remaining marshlands in Staten Island. Swimming and diving birds, such as Canada geese and cormorants, are also vulnerable to having their feathers coated by the floating oil, and all waterfowl have the potential to consume oil while feeding.
Based on the risks to species and habitats from both oil and cleanup, we weigh the science carefully before making spill response recommendations to the Coast Guard.
Tracking the Spilled Oil
Responders face an oily debris field in Sheepshead Bay, N.Y., after Hurricane Sandy. Nov. 2, 2012. (U.S. Coast Guard)
Because no two oils are alike, we train aerial observers to evaluate the character and extent of oil spilled on the water. NOAA performs these aerial surveys, or overflights, of spilled oil like in Arthur Kill to determine the status of the oil’s source and to track where wind and waves are moving spilled oil while also weathering it. The movement of wind and waves, along with sunlight, works to break down oil into its chemical components. This changes the appearance, size, and location of oil, and in return, can change how animals and plants interact with the oil.
When spilled on water, diesel oil spreads very quickly to a thin film. However, diesel has high levels of toxic components which dissolve fairly readily into the water column, posing threats to the organisms living there. Biodiesel can coat animals that come into contact with it, but it breaks down up to four times more quickly than conventional diesel. At the same time, this biodegradation could cause potential fish kills by using up large amounts of oxygen in the water, especially in shallow areas.
Look for photos, maps, and updates on pollution-related response efforts at IncidentNews.
Check the Superstorm Sandy CrisisMap for aggregated information from NOAA, FEMA, and other sources on weather alerts and observations; storm surge and flood water data; aerial damage assessment imagery; and the locations of power outages, food and gas in New Jersey, and emergency shelters.
This is a post by the Office of Response and Restoration’s Jessica White.
Oil pits dominate the landscape at the Superfund site where the Malone Service Company processed waste chemicals and oils from 1964 to 1996. (NOAA)
In many ways, the Superfund site at the former home of the Malone Service Company in Texas City, Texas, is just like the hundreds of other waste sites scattered across this country.
It is located on what was once undeveloped land, bordered by productive wetland and marsh, a lake, and Galveston Bay, the nation’s seventh largest estuary.
The stream of pollution began back in the 1960s when the company set up shop as an industrial waste disposal facility. This was before a veritable flood of federal and state laws (like the Clean Water Act and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, a.k.a., CERCLA or the Superfund Law) began to regulate or prohibit dumping hazardous waste into the environment. (But mismanagement of the waste continued even after CERCLA was passed in 1980.)
The list of those potentially responsible for the pollution is long and ranges from large businesses to government entities to small private companies.
Here too, the contamination was varied (e.g., heavy metals, potentially toxic oil residues) and comprehensive, affecting the soil, water, and underwater sediments [PDF]. And, of course, it injured a number of natural resources, including birds, aquatic life, and their habitats.
The Malone Service Company Superfund site and surrounding area near Texas City, Texas. Click to enlarge.
What sets this case apart from most is that those potentially responsible for the pollution and the state and federal governments were able to work together to reach an agreement to clean up and restore the affected natural resources—no easy feat considering the long and complicated history.
I entered the scene in 2004, working as a scientist to investigate how bad the contamination was and which natural resources were impacted. I have continued working on the Malone site as it makes its way from remediation toward recovery and long-term monitoring.
By participating in the Superfund process, the trustees (charged with protecting public natural resources) and I were able to get the information we needed to conduct our damage assessment of those resources without having to perform independent studies. This saved both time and money.
Fortunately, we were also able to contribute to this restoration process everything we know about these animals, plants, and habitats, ensuring that the environmental impacts were adequately addressed and that further impacts from cleanup would be minimized. Collaborating with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which leads Superfund cleanups, made this a win-win situation.
Our damage assessment showed the natural resources living in coastal prairie habitat, freshwater habitat, and saltwater marsh habitat suffered significantly. In particular, birds and invertebrates really felt the effects of the contaminated water and sediments.
The cemetery for the 19th century settlement known as Campbell’s Bayou, a state historic site, is actually located on the Malone waste site. Restoration experts had to work around the cemetery. (NOAA/Jessica White)
(And in a highly unusual twist, we had to work around a cemetery for the old settlement of Campbell’s Bayou, which is a state historic site.)
So, how much would it cost to restore, replace, or acquire the equivalent of these injured habitats? After adding in the cost of a few other things, such as monitoring the environment’s future health? The number which the trustees and those paying finally settled on was $3 million.
Still ahead, however, is identifying the most appropriate restoration projects to make up for these losses. Likely restoration will take the form of preserving marsh habitat or acquiring marsh and oak motte (grove) habitat. It could even mean constructing new marsh nearby.
On top of the $3 million for restoration is another $56.4 million to clean up the remaining pollution. This remediation, which the EPA will oversee, will be the first step toward primary on-site restoration of the Malone Superfund site.
Unlike many other waste sites which sit lingering across the country, the trustees, EPA, and potentially responsible parties have overcome many obstacles to remove this source of contamination from the Texas City community and restore the habitat for the natural resources depending on it.
Migrating birds, drawn to the coast, will no longer die in the open oil pits, whose watery surfaces lured them in. In the future, this land may offer instead a safe source of freshwater for birds and enjoyment for the bird watchers who follow them.
While you can see here the kind of wildlife Jessica is comfortable around (boats), she is fully dedicated to protecting the environment.
Jessica White is a Regional Resource Coordinator with the Assessment and Restoration Division of NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration. She has been working with NOAA in the Gulf since 2003 and will be relocating to the Disaster Response Center in October 2012. Jessica has assessed and restored Superfund sites in Texas and Louisiana and has supported oil spill and marine debris cleanup. She has a B.S. in Biology from Texas Tech University and a M.S. in Environmental Science from the University of North Texas.
In previous ship salvage cases involving coral habitats, biologists have observed considerable coral damage from not only the physical placement of anchors, cables, and support vessels, but also continued shifting and grinding from the grounded vessel. As a result, crews are working carefully to keep that from happening here.
In such a long and complicated salvage project, it is impossible to prevent all impacts, but crews are continuing to remove and reattach corals at risk from the grounded ship. Nearly 1,000 corals have been moved already. These transplanted corals are expected to have a high survival rate and reduce the overall impacts from the vessel removal operation.
A NOAA-authorized biologist is on site during all coral relocation operations to make sure corals are properly handled and reattached to reefs. Before responders attempt to refloat the vessel, qualified divers will evaluate the corals in the area and determine an exit path for the damaged ship that will have the least impact to the surrounding coral habitat. This may or may not turn out to be the same path the ship took when it entered the reef. Depending on conditions after the vessel’s removal, the coral colonies may be relocated back to their original place on the reef.
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The U.S. Coast Guard and the rest of the response crew have been working carefully to cut up portions of the ship, in order to lighten the vessel enough to refloat and remove it from the reef. Once disassembled, the removed portions of the ship are loaded onto a barge and taken to Puerto Rico for recycling.
Additionally, since the grounding on June 21, crews already have removed 600 tons of oiled cargo and more than 5,000 gallons of oil-water mixture.
Here you can see their plan for removing and disposing of this damaged vessel.
Jireh removal and disposal process. (Jireh Grounding Unified Command)
Once the ship is refloated, the plan is to scuttle (purposefully sink) the wreck 12 miles away from Mona Island. After it is sunk, the wreckage is not expected to pose any additional risk to corals or other marine life. The difference with this shipwreck is the location.
“Intertidal wrecks are unstable and scour the reefs as they degrade and fall apart, while a wreck far out at sea becomes a stable deep-water habitat over time,” said Doug Helton, Incident Operations Coordinator for the Office of Response and Restoration.
The Coast Guard reports that removing the Jireh from Mona Island is the best solution to protect the sensitive environment and coral reefs surrounding this highly valuable natural reserve. Once this threat is permanently removed, NOAA divers will conduct an assessment of the grounding area and continue to work with local environmental agencies to ensure its full recovery.
This is a post by the Office of Response and Restoration’s Mary Evans.
Dealing with a major oil spill is a huge effort, sometimes requiring billions of dollars and involving hundreds, even thousands of people. Yet, oil is a natural material that seeps from the ground or into the ocean in many locations around the world.
So why is it so important to respond to an oil spill, anyway? The main reason is that oil is also a toxic material that can cause environmental damage where it spills. The central purpose of oil spill response is to reduce that damage.
Toxic Effects
We call something toxic if it harms living things. The amount of harm caused depends on how an organism is exposed and to how much oil. For example, crude oil is considered toxic and causes two main kinds of injury: physical and biochemical.
Dr. Brian Stacy, NOAA veterinarian, prepares to clean an oiled Kemp’s Ridley turtle during the response to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon/BP oil spill. Veterinarians and scientists from NOAA, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission, and other partners worked under the Unified Command to capture heavily-oiled young turtles 20 to 40 miles offshore as part of animal rescue and rehabilitation efforts. Credit: NOAA and Georgia Department of Natural Resources.
The physical effects of freshly spilled crude oil are all too obvious. You’ve likely seen the disturbing images of birds and other animals coated in crude oil, struggling to survive. When oil washes ashore, it can completely cover and smother the plants and animals living there. Crude oil not only destroys the insulating properties of animal fur and bird feathers, which can lead to hypothermia, but it also impairs animals’ abilities to fly and swim, sometimes causing oiled animals to drown.
During the months after the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, researchers collected about 30,000 dead birds–ranging over 90 different species–from the oiled areas, and they estimated that perhaps ten times as many birds died.
Spilled oil also can harm life because its chemical constituents are poisonous. As we previously learned, petroleum-derived oil is a complex mixture of thousands of chemical compounds. Given oil’s chemical complexity, we need to consider how these different components—and their very different effects on living things—cause harm.
Breaking It Down
Let’s look at two important components of crude oil: volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). In terms of how long they remain in the environment, they represent two ends of a spectrum.
All crude oil contains VOCs, which readily evaporate into the air, giving crude oil a distinctive odor. Some VOCs are acutely toxic when inhaled, in addition to being potentially cancer-causing. At the site of a fresh oil spill, these VOCs can threaten nearby residents, responders working on the spill, air-breathing marine mammals, and sea turtles at the water surface. However, VOCs are generally a response concern only right after oil is spilled, because oil floating on the sea surface quickly loses its VOCs.
Years after the Exxon Valdez oil spill, heavy residual oiling remains in sediments of Smith Island in Prince William Sound, Alaska, June 2011. (David Janka, R/V Auklet, NOAA)
In contrast, PAHs can persist in the environment for many years, in some cases continuing to harm organisms long after the oil first spills. How PAHs in oil do that is an active area of research.
For example, our colleagues at NOAA’s Auke Bay Laboratory near Juneau, Alaska, investigated the possible biological effects of oil that spilled from the Exxon Valdez in 1989 but still remains at very low concentrations in weathered oil in beach sediments at locations scattered around Prince William Sound.
The Auke Bay Lab researchers conducted a series of studies that continued for more than a decade. They found that even though the levels of PAHs leaching from weathered oil buried in beach sediments were very low, the PAHs still caused negative effects to incubating herring and salmon eggs. The good news from these studies is that over the years, the concentration of PAHs has declined in the Sound’s beach sediments, to the point that those particular toxic effects on fish eggs have diminished as well. However, at a few sites in the Sound, sea otters are eating clams that may continue to be contaminated by leaching PAHs in buried oil.
The Northwest Fisheries Science Center, another NOAA research laboratory in Seattle, Wash., has studied the chemical physiology of how PAHs harm developing fish. The researchers found that some PAHs in oil inhibit proper heart development in fish embryos, which can either kill the fish outright or make them more susceptible to predation and disease.
With so many varying factors coming into play, predicting the impacts of an oil spill can be quite challenging. It’s important to know the specific chemical makeup of an oil (and how that makeup changes over time as the oil weathers). This information will give us clues about how that oil will interact with organisms and the environment and, hopefully, will help us figure out how to keep those impacts low.
Mary Evans provides science communication and research analysis support to OR&R’s Emergency Response Division in Seattle. She develops educational and training materials and research reports, helps out with oil spill responses and the division’s training programs, and has taught emergency response courses in the U.S. and abroad.
This is a post by Vicki Loe with OR&R chemist Robert Jones. Technical review by Robert Jones and OR&R biologist Gary Shigenaka.
Emulsified oil from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon/BP spill remains on, and pooled below, vegetation in Pass a Loutre, La., following a previous week’s storm. Image shot on May 22, 2010. (NOAA)
I recently began an ongoing conversation on this blog about our relationship with oil and oil products and the large part oil plays in all of our lives. Walking through just the first hour of a typical day for me, I managed to list 20 products I use that come from oil. But for something that we all depend on every day, how much do we really understand about what it is and why it’s so useful?
As most of us know, oil comes from beneath the ground. It is made of dead animal and plant matter, buried deep under layers of sedimentary rock. Pressure and heat cause oil deposits to form over long periods of time. But what is oil at its most basic?
A diagram of the molecular structure of benzene, an aromatic hydrocarbon and component of oil.
Oil is a complex mixture of molecular compounds. A molecule is the smallest unit of a substance that retains the substance’s characteristics. Molecules, in turn, are composed of atoms. There are only 90 naturally occurring types of atoms on earth; these form the basis of the innumerable types of molecules found in nature.
Crude oils, while mixtures of thousands of types of molecular compounds, are predominantly composed of only two types of atoms: hydrogen (H) and carbon (C). Molecular compounds composed exclusively of these two elements are called hydrocarbons.
Petroleum hydrocarbons are predominantly one of two types, aromatics or alkanes. Aromatics, which are based on a 6-carbon ring, tend to be the molecular compounds in oil that are the most toxic to marine life. A notable case is polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which have multiple carbon rings and can also be quite persistent in the environment. Alkanes, on the other hand, tend to be less toxic and are much more readily biodegraded naturally; most can be ingested as food by some microorganisms.
For example, the oil spilled from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon/BP well blow-out was relatively high in alkanes and relatively low in PAHs. But, like all crude oils, it contained benzene, toluene, and xylene, which belong to the single-ring aromatic group. Benzene is very toxic and known to cause cancer but is not as persistent as PAHs.
Oil in marsh vegetation during the 2010 Deepwater Horizon/BP oil spill. (NOAA)
Refining crude oil to produce fuel oils like gasoline and diesel does not significantly alter the molecular structure of the oil’s components. So fuel oils usually contain the same types of molecular compounds that are found in their parent crude oils.
Different chemical compounds can be extracted from crude oil and then recombined or altered to make what are called petrochemicals. Petrochemicals are used to make a vast array of products, including acetic acid, ammonia, polyvinyl chloride, polyethylene, lubricants, adhesives, agrochemicals, fragrances, food additives, packaging, paint, and pharmaceutical products. And that’s just the start!
NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration is the primary science adviser to the U.S. Coast Guard during a major oil spill. Knowledge of the chemical make-up of the particular oil, whether it is a crude oil or refined fuel oil, is critical in making response decisions when there is spill. Among the scientists that work in OR&R’s Emergency Response Division are chemists that are experts in this field.
Crude oil is predominantly a mixture of hydrocarbons, but every crude oil is a unique mixture of molecular compounds. There are thousands of named crude oils in use around the world. Our chemists make recommendations by determining the source of the spill and the optimal cleanup methods and safety issues, based on the unique properties of the oil released.
The next blog post in this series will delve into the toxicity of oil and the harm it can cause when accidentally released into the marine environment. Look for it coming soon!
Robert Jones
Co-author Robert Jones is a chemist in OR&R’s Emergency Response Division. He is a member of the spill response team and is involved in the development of computer models used to predict the fate and transport of oil and other chemicals in the environment. Robert received his Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from Indiana University. Prior to joining NOAA in 1990, Robert taught chemistry at Western Washington University.
When I think about oil consumption, I immediately think of gasoline and how much I drive. And I often feel pretty good about it because I drive a relatively fuel-efficient car. But oil is part of plenty of other products in our lives too.
Seattle, the city in which I live, recently has banned plastic bags, which are made from oil, and also prohibits restaurants and grocery stores from using Styrofoam (oil-based) containers for take-out food. A lot of people would agree that society’s heavy dependence on oil has some negative consequences, which means we are happy about improving fuel efficiency and avoiding Styrofoam cups.
Credit: derek_b; used under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0) License
But when I look over a list of everyday items made from oil, I am struck by how many of them we might use just in the first hour of a typical day. For starters, the pillow I sleep on likely contains oil products. I wake up every day to the sound of my iPhone alarm at 6:30 a.m., and the phone’s parts and the plastic encasing it wouldn’t exist without oil. It’s a similar story for my shower curtain, shampoo, and bath soap. My toothbrush, toothpaste, and the container that holds my floss are made of oil. Same goes for my deodorant and moisturizer. My hair dryer and brush are plastic, so we can add them to the list. Lots of cosmetics contain oil, so if I wear lipstick or nail polish, there’s another one. If the clothes I put on contain synthetic fibers or my shoes have rubber soles, they too contain oil.
So I grab my sunglasses (made of plastic) and head for my car, which has plastic parts, enamel, and tires that all were derived from oil, and—we can’t forget—the gasoline that still powers it, however efficiently. By now, it’s 7:30 a.m., and I have used at least 20 products that are manufactured with oil, and I haven’t even made it to the coffee shop yet, where, thankfully, my coffee will come in a paper cup (but with a plastic lid).
Credit: Lisle Boomer; used under Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-ND 2.0) License.
Because oil plays such a huge role in most of our lives in the U.S., companies are drilling and transporting a lot of it in marine waters. That means that when accidents happen, oil can—and does—get spilled into the marine environment.
Scientists at the Office of Response and Restoration prepare for and respond to these oil spills: forecasting the movement and behaviors of spilled oil and chemicals, evaluating the risk to natural resources, and recommending the best cleanup measures. That means that we need to understand oil in order to deal with it properly.
Our society’s relationship with oil is complex. For something that is so pervasive in our lives, many of us actually do not know much about it. In a series of blog posts over the next several months, stay tuned as we delve into a variety of topics, including what oil actually is, what makes it so useful, and why it can be so toxic in the marine environment.
This is a post by John Whitney, OR&R’s Scientific Support Coordinator for Alaska.
An arctic cod, a key part of the Arctic food web, rests in an ice-covered space in Alaska’s Beaufort Sea, North of Point Barrow. This species was one of the subjects of the research program on dispersant effects in the Arctic. (Shawn Harper/Hidden Ocean 2005 Expedition: NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration)
If there were a huge oil spill in the Arctic, would chemical dispersants work under the frigid conditions there?
And once dispersants break down oil into smaller droplets, how toxic are the oil and chemicals to key species in the short Arctic food web?
Would the dispersed oil and dispersant actually biodegrade in cold Arctic waters?
With Shell currently on track to drill several exploratory wells in the Chukchi and Beaufort Sea this summer, these are very timely questions—and finally, we are beginning to find some answers.
For the last three years, a special oil industry research group (called a “joint industry program”) has been trying to resolve these questions before any major oil exploration, development, and production happens off the northern Alaskan Arctic coastline. Lead scientists Dr. Jack Word of Newfields Environmental (Port Gamble, Wash.) and Dr. Robert Perkins of University of Alaska, Fairbanks, coordinated this research program to determine the viability of using dispersants on Arctic Ocean oil spills.
The illustration, not associated with this study, shows potential oil spill impacts to wildlife and habitats in the Arctic Ocean. Click for larger view. Credit: NOAA/Kate Sweeney, Illustration.
Aiming for as realistic Arctic conditions as possible, they captured arctic zooplankton (krill and Calanus copepods, which are tiny marine crustaceans) as well as larval and juvenile fish (arctic cod and sculpin) from the coastal waters of the Beaufort Sea.
These organisms are key players in the Arctic food web and culturing them in order to conduct toxicity tests hopefully would reveal how negative impacts from oil and dispersants could cascade through the ecosystem. The researchers also conducted toxicity and biodegradation tests in actual waters collected from the Beaufort Sea.
Five oil companies were pooling their talents and financial resources to conduct these tests and gather information: Shell, ConocoPhillips, Statoil, ExxonMobil, and BP. As NOAA’s Scientific Support Coordinator for Alaska, I was fortunate enough to serve on a unique, yet very important, part of the group: the Technical Advisory Committee, which is composed of non-industry technical and non-technical stakeholders. We met once a month to discuss the results and advise them on ongoing scientific tests.
Drs. Word and Perkins and their colleagues recently presented the results of this research at a workshop in Anchorage, Alaska. The workshop began with Tim Nedwed of ExxonMobil making a strong case for immediate and robust access to all the major oil spill response options—mechanical methods, in situ burning, and dispersants—in order to deal with a large oil release in the Arctic or any other location.
Mechanical methods (e.g., skimmers) and in situ burning typically encounter spilled oil at low rates, historically removing only 5% to 15% of the oil on the water’s surface. This makes chemical dispersants a very attractive option when approaching a big spill using a large aircraft (such as a C-130) to deliver dispersants. After all, Dr. Nedwed pointed out, the ultimate goal of dispersants is to deliver a significant boost to the rate of oil biodegradation that happens naturally after most oil spills.
Here are some of the major findings from their research:
Arctic marine species show equal or less sensitivity to petroleum after exposure than temperate (warmer water) species.
The Arctic test organisms did not show significant signs of toxicity when exposed to recommended application rates of the dispersant Corexit 9500 by itself, which also tends to biodegrade on the order of several weeks to a few months.
Petroleum does biodegrade with the help of indigenous microbes in the Arctic’s open waters under both summer and winter conditions.
Chemical dispersants more fully degraded certain components of oil than petroleum that was physically dispersed (for example, from wind or waves breaking up an oil slick).
Under various scenarios for large and small oil spills treated with Corexit 9500, the effects on populations of arctic cod, a keystone species in the Arctic, appeared to be minor to insignificant.
This workshop garnered attention from the oil industry, government regulatory and natural resource agencies, academia, Alaska North Slope residents, private consultants, and non-governmental organizations. It concluded with a brief discussion of Net Environmental Benefit Analysis, a scientific process of weighing the costs against the benefits to the environment, with emphasis on the importance of making this process both science-based and, at the same time, compatible with listening to the subsistence Alaska Native population, a significant and valuable voice in the Arctic.
John Whitney has served as the Alaskan Scientific Support Coordinator for NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration for over 25 years. His responsibilities include primary scientific support to the U. S. Coast Guard, as well as to industry, government agencies, and stakeholders for oil spills and other hazardous materials response in Alaska’s offshore waters. John’s background is in physics and geophysics, earning a PhD in geophysics from the University of Washington in Seattle. Currently, John participates in deliberations with the Arctic Council Emergency Preparedness, Prevention, and Response working group and also chairs the dispersant working group of the Alaska Regional Response Team.
This is a post by Dr. Alan Mearns, NOAA Senior Staff Scientist.
Kathleen Herrmann of the Snohomish County Marine Resources Committee (MRC) samples mussels at Hat Island, 5 miles offshore of Everett, Wash. Credit: Lincoln Loehr, MRC.
Scraping small black mussels off of slippery rocks in the Pacific Northwest’s chilly, wet January weather probably doesn’t sound like much fun. However, thanks to the dedicated folks who endure those conditions (and to several other important partners), these mussels and others tested in NOAA’s National Mussel Watch Program will keep telling us about water pollution levels and seafood safety for years to come.
NOAA’s Gary Shigenaka and Tim Jones of Penn Cove Shellfish Co. sample raft-grown mussels from one of the numerous culture rafts, five days following the nearby sinking of the derelict vessel, Deep Sea. Credit: Alan Mearns/NOAA.
For example, just last month a fishing boat caught fire and sank near Washington’s Whidbey Island. The boat ended up leaking diesel fuel into waters near a Penn Cove Shellfish Company mussel farm, and the company took the precautionary measure of stopping the harvest. Fellow NOAA scientist Gary Shigenaka and I rushed to the scene.
With help from the shellfish company’s co-owner Ian Jefferds, we sampled mussels from six mussel floats and two beach sites and received the lab results of the oil pollution screening a few days later. They confirmed that the mussels had low levels of diesel contamination. The Washington State Department of Health had shut down all shellfish harvesting in Penn Cove on May 15 and just reopened some areas on June 5.
Penn Cove Shellfish mussel farm floats, with protective floating boom surrounding the site where the fishing vessel sank in the background. Credit: Alan Mearns/NOAA.
Unfortunately, we didn’t have an existing Mussel Watch site in this cove. Nevertheless, thanks to comparable Mussel Watch sites nearby, we have a decent idea of what the contaminant levels in Penn Cove mussels might have looked like before this oil spill. But not long ago this valuable shellfish-monitoring program almost disappeared from Washington waters.
Endangered Research
During the past couple years, I’ve worked together with Dr. Dennis Apeti at NOAA’s National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science and Dr. James West at Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife to help revive and expand the National Mussel Watch Program in the state of Washington where I live.
Under NOAA, the National Mussel Watch Program has been monitoring trends in contaminant levels in the mussels (Mytilus spp.) living in Washington waters since 1986. Regionally, this program has been tracking changing levels of pollution at up to 20 different locations in Puget Sound, the Straits of Georgia and Juan de Fuca, and Washington’s Olympic Coast.
This provides valuable water quality data on background levels and trends of fossil-fuel byproducts and other chemicals. These include about 50 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which are potentially cancer-causing pollutants. By sampling mussels, we’ve discovered that parts of Puget Sound have significantly higher amounts of PAHs than anywhere else in the U.S., including heavily trafficked ports like Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay.
However, a steady decrease in funding over the past several years threatened to end NOAA’s mussel monitoring in Washington and across the country. As early as 2006, I was working as a volunteer member of the Snohomish County (Washington) Marine Resources Committee to convince the county, the Stillaguamish Tribe, and the Tulalip Tribe to help save the program by funding and coordinating their own local mussel sampling—and had some success by 2006 and 2007. But it wouldn’t be enough to save the program.
In 2009, I approached scientists at the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife, who evaluate trends in Puget Sound’s environmental quality. Chief Eco-toxicologist Dr. West bit at the opportunity to help and got his department involved.
Volunteer Muscle
By the winter of 2009–10, we were ready to save the program with the help of citizen scientists. These were the hardy volunteers we helped train to collect mussels using scientific methods around Puget Sound and on the Olympic Coast. Many of these volunteers are part of Washington State University Beach Watchers, a program active in marine education, research, and stewardship.
Snohomish County Marine Resources Committee members and Snohomish County BeachWatcher volunteers sample mussels at the Edmonds Jetty Mussel Watch site, one of the National Mussel Watch Program sites. Credit: Alan Mearns/NOAA.
Alongside these volunteers was staff from the Snohomish County Marine Resources Committee and the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary. And of course, my NOAA colleague Debra Simecek-Beatty and I were out in our rain gear gathering mussels too.
From January through March 2010, both old and new collection sites in Washington had been sampled, and the mussels were sent to a NOAA-contracted laboratory for chemical analysis.
Then on April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon/BP well blowout caused nearly every qualified pollutant chemistry laboratory in the U.S. to drop everything and support the oil spill response and assessment in the Gulf of Mexico. Our Washington samples were ready and waiting but got set aside for more than a year.
Forging Ahead
Anxiously awaiting results, but undaunted, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife began preparing for the next biennial survey in 2012. Thanks to new U.S. EPA funding, they now could expand the Washington program to test mussels at nearly 30 locations, which were sampled this past February.
Just last month, we finally received the long-awaited 2010 lab results. Preliminary inspection revealed a new hotspot of oil byproducts in Elliot Bay while several past locations like this disappeared from urban areas. I’ve been providing guidance for the data analysis, particularly for the petroleum hydrocarbons (PAHs).
Mussels and barnacles on rip rap rocks at a Mussel Watch site. Note also the seaweed, Fucus (popweed), and several dog whelk snails (that prey on mussels). Credit: Snohomish County Marine Resources Committee.
The recent Washington Mussel Watch expansion is now poised to open sampling at 60 sites, including completely new areas, such as the San Juan Islands; to sample during different seasons to pin down big runoff pollution events; and potentially to use a new technique that allows us to sample in areas where mussels aren’t living already (by placing clean mussels in a bag attached to a buoy anchored at sea).
This Mussel Watch triumph of partnerships not only gives scientists and natural resource managers in Washington the ability to track the benefits of pollution management actions, but it also gives them a basis for comparing background contaminant levels in the event of an oil spill like the one near Whidbey Island, Wash. When cleaning up spilled oil, it helps us to know how “clean” any particular place was before oil spilled there.
As both a professional and citizen scientist myself (10 years of tracking birds in my backyard!), I know just how valuable this kind of work can be. I’m proud to be part of this association and look forward to a healthy future for tracking Washington’s marine health.
Many thanks to NOAA’s Drs. Gunnar Lauenstein, Debra Simecek-Beatty, and Dennis Apeti for assistance.
Dr. Alan Mearns is Ecologist and Senior staff Scientist with the Office of Response and Restoration’s Emergency Response Division in Seattle. He has over 40 years of experience in ecology and pollution assessment and response, with focus on wastewater discharges and oil spills along the Pacific Coast and in Alaska. He has worked in locations as varied as the Arctic Ocean, Southern California, Israel, and Australia, and has participated in spill responses around the U.S. and abroad.
Twenty three years after running aground on a reef in Alaska and causing one of the largest spills in U.S. history, the tanker Exxon Valdez is back in the news—this time to keep it from being intentionally grounded on a beach in India.
The Indian Supreme Court has ruled that the Exxon Valdez (now called the Oriental Nicety) cannot be grounded and cut apart on the shores of Gujarat until it can be cleaned of residual oils and other contaminants.
Workers scrap ships for parts and metal (“ship breaking”) on a beach in Bhatiari, Chittagong, Bangladesh. Credit: Naquib Hossain, Creative Commons License: Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0).
What’s known as “ship breaking” is a dirty business, and many of the world’s tired and obsolete vessels end up being grounded on beaches in India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan and cut apart for scrap steel.
In recent years the business of ship scrapping has become a major health and environmental concern. Many ship breaking yards in these developing countries have little or no safety equipment or environmental protections, and toxic materials from these ships, including oils, heavy metals, and asbestos, escape into the environment.
A rusted-out derelict vessel still sits grounded on a coal reef in Samoa. (NOAA/Doug Helton)
Obsolete vessels and ship scrapping can also be a problem here in the U.S. Last year, the 431-foot S/S Davy Crockett made the news down on the Columbia River near Vancouver, Wash.
Next week I will be at the Clean Pacific Conference in Long Beach, Calif., and presenting information on the challenges of dealing with abandoned and derelict vessels in the U.S. I know that the Davy Crockett and the issues it raised will come up.
Vessels are abandoned for all sorts of reasons, including storms (particularly hurricanes/typhoons which may damage large numbers of boats), community-wide economic stress or change (e.g., declining commercial fishing industries), and financial or legal issues of individual owners. The high cost of proper vessel disposal can lead some folks to just walk away.
Hopefully we can help improve how we respond to these vessels and increase prevention programs to prevent abandonment. If you are interested in this issue, there is more information on NOAA’s Abandoned Vessel Program.
