Oil Spills 1

Oil Spills

Jake Festich

Oceans

BIO 118-1/GEOL 118-1

Dr. Swig

April 28, 2020

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Ever since the commercialization of petroleum products in the mid 19th century,
environmentally destructive oil spills have been an inescapable part of the industry. The safe
transportation and storage of oil is not an infallible science, and there have been many disasters
throughout the years that have had an adverse impact on the environment, as well as human life.
There have been so many, in fact, that nationwide media will only cover the largest of disasters,
and the local media outlets will cover anything that they perceive as a direct threat to the
community. Because of this, many oil spills and other sorts of incidents go largely unnoticed by
the nation and the world at large. Interestingly enough, the earliest reported oil spill was in 1967
in Great Britain. As the years went on, the increasing reliance on oil and petroleum based
products saw an increase in oil accidents as more and more of it was pumped out of the earth and
shipped across the world. By the 1990s, there was at least one notable oil spill up until the end of
the decade, and going into the 2000s there would be a sharp increase in the amount of oil spills
recorded and documented. I will be touching on the largest ones first, and ones that people are
the most familiar with. The most recent large oil disaster was the ​Deepwater Horizon​ incident,
also called the BP oil spill, or my favorite name, “The Macondo Blowout.” Widely considered to
be the largest oil spill in the history of the United States, it occured when an oil drilling platform,
the aforementioned ​Deepwater Horizon​ exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, 41 miles off of the coast
of Louisiana. The explosion caused the deaths of eleven of the crew members and injured a 17 of
the survivors. The spill was estimated to be a volume of 210 million gallons, outpacing the
record set by the previous disaster, the spill of the ​Ixtoc I​ in 1979. The biggest disaster in the
world by far was the fires in the oil fields of Kuwait, during the persian gulf war. The damage
came in the form of the toxic smoke from the fires, mostly in the form of extremely reduced air
quality, the unchecked fires and damaged wells caused the oil to flow out to the coast and
straight into the Persain Gulf, creating the appropriately named Persian Gulf oil spill as well.
These are some of the more widely known disasters. There have been many oil spills and
incidents over the years. For example, in October of 2001, 300,000 gallons of oil were dumped
into the Alaskan wilderness after a drunk hunter hit the Trans-Alaskan pipeline with a high
caliber rifle. A fifth of all oil production in the US was halted as a result. Another example, in
November of 2004, A tanker spilled an estimated 475,000 gallons Delaware River between
Philadelphia and southern New Jersey, creating a 20-mile slick that threatened local wildlife. The
oil stained 70 miles of shoreline across three states. The cleanup was an immense effort, over
1000 crews were called in to assist with the disaster. (The Mariner Group.com) Even recently,
there was an oil spill in 2019 in Ellwood beach, located in Santa Barbara county. Around 120
gallons were estimated to be spilled. (santa barbara independent) While not nearly as big as the
other spills, they are still worth noting and mentioning, because little acts of carelessness can
compound into larger issues over time. Part of preventing that carelessness is being informed,
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and taking the proper steps to ensure such disasters ideally never happen again. Otherwise the
Earth will suffer, the wildlife especially.

The environmental impact of oil spills is well documented. Vast amounts of oil present in
the oceans where it shouldn't be is deadly to all manor of life involved. Since oil can block the
sunlight, all of the photosynthetic organisms might have a hard time or impossible time
photosynthesizing. Fish can are also at risk, coming into contact with the oil can damage their
fins and overall growth. Oil can also destroy the thermoregulation in birds and mammals, as well
as disrupt the water repellant nature in birds, and birds can also be rendered flightless, as the oil
will weigh them down and mess up their feathers. Sea turtles can mistake it for food, and
dolphins can ingest it, doing damage to the kidneys. When cleaning themselves, birds can also
ingest the oil, leading to poisoning. In shallow waters, fish eggs will die and fish themselves put
at extreme risk of death if there is an oil or petroleum spill. (NOAA). Additionally, if the oil
contaminates a coastline, it soaks into everything: Plants, animals, even into the dirt and sand.
Estuaries specifically are at a great risk, as they are not equipped to handle the toxic
contaminants present in an oil spill. They harbor life that is very fragile, and could be easily
wiped out if such a spill were to reach those shores and disturb the delicate life sheltering there.
As such, cleaning the oil spills before they become a threat to the coastlines are a top priority.
The movement of the winds and waves can also hinder cleanup efforts. Depending on how fast
the currents move, the oil can be spread out over a large area, or broken up into smaller bits that
can get spread over a vast distance. Also, the type of oil spilled and the weather conditions will
affect the cleanup methods used.

As every oil spill is a bit different, and thus will require different methods of removing
the oil from the contaminated environment. The general methods of removing oil usually start
with attempting to contain the floating sheen as much as possible. The most common tactic used
is skimming, and there many different ways to skim oil off the top of the water. The most
versatile is a belt skimmer. It works by using a belt and pulley system to pull oil out of the water
and an internal wiper squeegees the oil onto a chute, which leads down to a containment vessel
of some sort (a barrel or some other holding tank). It has proven to be reliable, but one major
drawback is that the tactic can only be used when the water is calm. Some other common
methods include burning the spill right there on the ocean, but the winds need to be low and the
burning itself can cause air pollution. A tactic for beaches and the ocean is a vacuum and
centrifuge, where the water is pumped into a centrifuge, separated, and the water dumped back
out too see. This could lead to trace amounts of oil being let back into the water, and has led to
some complications with its use in the ocean. It is commonly used on beaches though.
Solidifiers, chemicals used to turn the oil solid, are also being used and researched to this day.
They were used heavily as part of the ​Deepwater Horizon ​clean up. That cleanup also featured
the use of skimmers, controlled burning, and as well as use of bioremediation and dispersants.
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Bioremediation is the use of microbes that subsist on the harmful chemicals present in the spill.
Typically, a gel-like substance is sprayed on the oil or chemical, which absorbs it and turns it
into a substance that microbes can eat through some arcane science that I honestly don’t really
understand, but sounds super helpful. When used on land, it blooms microbes that will eat the
oils from the ground. Research is still ongoing in this field of study. Dispersants help break up
the oil by making it water soluble, and allowing it to be absorbed. This came with controversy
however, as the chemical used was very toxic and had ingredients linked to various types of
cancers. There was some speculation that the amount of dispersant used was too far in excess
and might have actually made problems worse for the wildlife, as shown later by a study done
that pointed out that the chemical was damaging the phytoplankton ecosystem, and that the oil
itself had not truly gone away. (NBC) (Newsweek) It had sunk to the bottom of the ocean floor.
It should also be noted that the chemical was produced by a company that BP and other oil
companies had close ties too. However, the most interesting thing that came out of the cleanup
effort was the discovery of supposedly oil eating microbes. Later research showed that instead of
eating the oil, they consumed natural gases instrat. The discovery did show that it might be
possible to engineer a microbe to consume oil, and that topic of study is being researched in the
present day. Animals and wildlife are also part of the cleanup effort, or rather, we have to clean
them up. As stated earlier, oil can cause all sorts of havoc for birds, fish, and all manner of
marine life. Lots of volunteers clean up affected birds and animals, then release them back into
the wild. However, every animal cannot be saved, and many die from the way oil affects their
biology. There is an upside however; due to the many ​many ​oil spills that have happened over
the years, scientists are finding better and more efficient ways to clean them up, and in the years
since the ​Deepwater Horizon​ disaster there have been advancements in techniques of cleaning up
oil spills.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, several advances in

the realm of oil spill cleanup have been made since the Deepwater​ Horizon​ catastrophe. More
powerful software and computer hardware has led to the creation of more powerful modeling
hardware, better data visualization sites and more centralized resources for scientists to share and
exchange information about oil spills. New techniques in satellite and remote imaging have
helped scientists determine the thickness of oil spills from a safe distance using the
electromagnetic spectrum. New findings in the nature of oil toxicity have led to greater
understanding of the effect it has on marine life, with side effects of oil poisoning being
remarkably consistent across the board, with the most common being reduced growth, fitness,
lowered body weight, sensory malfunctions, and death. The restoration of the land impacted by
the oil spill is also still ongoing, and work is being done to increase a general level of disaster
preparedness in the gulf of Mexico, and by extension, the rest of the world as well. (NOAA)
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It is an inevitability that oil spills will happen in the now and the future. It is also
certainly expected that there will be at least one other disaster in the years to come involving vast
quantities of oil dumped straight into the environment. It is important, therefore, that we learn
from our mistakes, prepare and prevent disasters as best we can. Educating the public about oil
spills and the dangers they pose will be a start to more awareness and hopefully more change. In
the meantime, learning from these big disasters and pushing out efforts to heal the earth is the
most productive thing we can take from these sorts of catastrophes.
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Sources

Textbook
http://www.marinergroup.com/oil-spill-history.htm​ (Via wayback machine)
http://www.maritime-connector.com/ContentDetails/1479/gcgid/193/lang/English/Tanker-Incide
nts.wshtml​ (Via wayback machine)
https://response.restoration.noaa.gov/decade-later-advances-oil-spill-science-deepwater-horizon
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-microbes-helped-clean-bp-s-oil-spill/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8664684.stm
https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/hazards/deepwaterhorizon/
https://blog.response.restoration.noaa.gov/how-deepwater-horizon-spurred-advances-oil-toxicity-
science
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/50032789
https://www.newsweek.com/what-bp-doesnt-want-you-know-about-2010-gulf-spill-63015