Of Course Clean Up Workers Can't Find the Oil ....

[G_j]

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Of Course Clean Up Workers Can't Find the Oil ... BP Used Dispersants to Temporarily Hide It, So Now It Will Plague the Gulf For Years


News headlines state that cleanup workers are having a hard time finding oil.

<snip>

..the use of dispersants means that Booms can't stop it from hitting the shore. As marine biologist and oil spill expert Paul Horsman explains, using dispersants and oil booms are competing strategies. Specifically, breaking something down into tiny bits and dispersing it throughout a mile-plus deep and hundreds-miles wide region (the reason massive amounts of dispersants are being applied at the 5,000 foot-deep spill site as well as at the surface) makes it more difficult to cordon off and contain oil on the surface (the reason booms are being used).

And Corexit might be killing the oil-eating bacteria which would otherwise break down the oil. University of Georgia scientist Samantha Joye notes that scientists have no idea how the large quanties of dispersant will effect the Gulf's microbial communities (for more information, watch part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4 and part 5 of Dr. Joye's July 13th press conference)(available at link)

And as Mother Jones wrote in May:

David Valentine, a biogeochemist at the University of California Santa Barbara, warns the stuff may be riskier than just its toxicity. Corexit may undermine the microbes that naturally eat oil.

Some of the most potent oil-eaters—Alcanivorax borkumensis—are relatively rare organisms that have evolved to eat hydrocarbons from naturally occurring oil seeps. Valentine tells Eli Kintisch at Science Insider that after spills, Alcanivorax tend to be the dominant microbes found near the oil and that they secrete their own surfactant molecules to break up the oil before consuming the hydrocarbons. Other microbes don't make surfactants but devour oil already broken into small enough globs—including those broken down by Alcanivorax.

What we don't know is how the surfactants in Corexit and its ilk might affect the ability of Alcanivorax and other surfactant-makers to eat oil. Could Corexit exclude Alcanivorax from binding to the oil? Could it affect the way microbes makes their own surfactants? Could Corexit render natural surfactants less effective?

The National Science Foundation has awarded Valentine a grant to study the problem.

So it's not a good thing that clean up workers can't find the oil. It means that the oil will lurk under the surface, poisoning the sealife that lives beneath the surface, and washing back up during storms for years to come.

..
thanks a lot!

[mike r]

1. Tony Hayward said there is no oil in the water

so it doesn't exist.

[dkf]

2. They poisoned us to hide their crime.

How they can live with themselves I have no idea.

[nebenaube]

8. Act of war...

we should retaliate.

[Electric Monk]

3. How's that mantra go? "The solution to pollution is dilution" ?

[enlightenment]

4. Heard an interesting comment on NPR today

(right before they switched over to an interview with Niall Ferguson, which had me practically gagging. What a vile person he is.)

They were talking to some of the specialists in oil clean-up from Rotterdam - the company that makes the big sweeper arms that were offered for use, but - at least initially - 'rebuffed' in favor of dispersant and burn-off. The gentleman they were speaking with said that the biggest difference between the US and Europe is that when they have a spill, the government immediately steps in and takes control of the situation - with the knowledge that the company responsible for the disaster will be paying the tab.

We let the companies run the show. So, though BP is to blame for this, so is our government for failing to take control of the situation. Sometimes other nations know what they're doing. Sometimes we should admit other people have better ideas.

[WingDinger]

5. Asan engineer, I have lernt there is no free lunch.

[Cresent City Kid]

6. The pilots leading the skimming vessels said the same thing

They can't find the surface oil, but I'm sure the food chain is finding it everywhere. The EPA was hoodwinked or complicit when they allowed the use of Corexit. I hope the government who failed on this does better at determining the true flow rate of the gusher, for both fines, and the hope of a half decent estimate of the effect on sea life.

[CoffeeCat]

7. How long does the oil stay dispersed?

If Corexit is some kind of chemical or detergent--it's will eventually erode or break down in the
ocean, right? Corexit's dispersing effect won't last forever, I assume. So, those oil droplets
will eventually find their way back to each other, creating big plumes. Those plumes will eventually
reach the surface and the shore.

I don't really know anything about Corexit, but a ginormous amount of oil is still in the Gulf.

It will eventually surface.

I don't get BP's strategy. They thought they could temporarily hide the oil? Do they think we
won't know that the oil washing up on the Gulf months and years from now--is not BP oil????

Why didn't these idiots just allow the oil to rise--and then skim it off the surface?

They're prolonging their own pain--and damage to the beaches, the Gulf and wildlife.

[dipsydoodle]

9. Once separated

I don't think the oil does recombine - stays a droplets the size of which reduce in time with friction. Assuming the figures of the oil which has escaped to be accurate then the slicks would be beyond a size at which they could be skimmed off the surface. However - if the oil had remained intact as slicks then perhaps they could've been burned off using napalm which was what was used in the UK some years ago.