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Oil Dispersants Used During Gulf Spill Degrade Slowly In Cold Water

Posted by Soulskill on from the now-to-bring-out-the-oil-dispersant-dispersants dept.

MTorrice writes "During the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, clean up crews applied millions of liters of dispersants to break up the oil. At the time, the public and some scientists worried about the environmental effects of the chemicals, in particular how long they would last in the deep sea. According to a new Environmental Protection Agency study, the key active ingredient in the dispersants degrades very rapidly under conditions similar to those found at the Gulf surface during the spill. Meanwhile, in the much colder temperatures found in the deep sea, the breakdown is quite slow. The chemicals' persistence at deep-sea and Arctic temperatures suggests more research is needed on their toxicity, the researchers say."

13 of 61 comments (clear)

  1. Or, we could have just done nothing... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They were screwed either way. If they hadn't used them, there'd be a congressional inquiry asking why we didn't bring all the technology we possibly could to bear on this horrible accident. There's always a line of people who are salivating to second-guess whatever decision gets made. I'm guessing there are a lot of pelicans who, if they could talk, would be praising the use of the dispersants.

    1. Re:Or, we could have just done nothing... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      How about we stop letting corporations run shoddy operations to save a few bucks and keep the oil from getting in the water to begin with?

    2. Re:Or, we could have just done nothing... by MtHuurne · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Given that both using and not using the chemicals has drawbacks and that it is difficult to make good decisions at a time of crisis, isn't it a good thing this study is done now? That way, when another spill happens, there is more knowledge to base decisions on.

    3. Re:Or, we could have just done nothing... by Cryacin · · Score: 3, Insightful

      On a long enough timescale, no matter how well funded, mistakes will occur.

      --
      Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
    4. Re:Or, we could have just done nothing... by PopeRatzo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      On a long enough timescale, no matter how well funded, mistakes will occur.

      Sure, but when the rewards are greater than the cost of the consequences of the mistakes, those mistakes become more frequent.

      In fact, they become part of the business model.

      I mean, who knew that allowing the banking industry to engage in limitless derivatives investing could possibly cause any problems to the economy? Who could have predicted that an earthquake and tsunami could kill the power to an old, poorly-maintained nuclear plant, causing the release of radiation? Why would anyone think that turning firearms into consumer products as readily available as cell phones might end up in a society with a lot of gun violence? What moron would think that injecting toxic chemicals into bedrock under high pressures near populated areas could possibly cause contamination of ground water, risks to air quality, the migration of gases and fracturing chemicals to the surface, surface contamination from spills and flowback or that those might cause health risks?

      I mean, mistakes will occur.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    5. Re:Or, we could have just done nothing... by pipelayerification · · Score: 3, Insightful

      A $4.5 billion penalty is hardly a slap on the wrist. BP has set aside about $38 billion to settle up on the disaster in addition to the fines. There has never been an oil well worth that much money in history. It will certainly have an affect on the way they conduct their business in the future. Statistics do not bear out that ubiquitous gun ownership leads to dramatic increases in gun violence, in fact, quite the opposite is true. And while fracking is certainly not the panacea that many in the gas industry would like everyone to believe it is certainly not the Pandora's box that environmental alarmists would have you believe either.

  2. The goal was to hide, not solve, the problem. by RocketRabbit · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The use of dispersants (really, the term should be "submergants") just caused the oil to sink to the sea floor. This in no way mitigates the actual problem, and may in fact compound it over time. However, it did allow the EPA, the Obama administration, and BP to rehabilitate their severely tarnished images, because this was a problem that you couldn't see easily.

    Gulf seafood is off the menu for millions of people now, and into the foreseeable future, because these "dispersants" just happen to be extremely toxic to humans.

    Unfortunately, we appear to have learned nothing and will probably use this kind of sweeping under the rug tactic when future spills happen.

    1. Re:The goal was to hide, not solve, the problem. by the+eric+conspiracy · · Score: 4, Interesting

      There is some logic to the use of these materials.

      After all most of the life in aquatic environments is on or near the surface. The most important ecologies are the salt marshes and the top 200 meters or so of the ocean (epipelalogic zone) which is sunlit. It is where all the action is. 90% of life is found in this top layer. It is where the most complex and presumably vulnerable life forms are found.

      So submerging the oil potentially reduces the harm that a spill may cause.

    2. Re:The goal was to hide, not solve, the problem. by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 4, Interesting

      However, the density of oil makes it possible to collect it from the top of the ocean without extremely complicated measures.

      Yes ... but ... see, you're making perfect sense here, so that's where you've gone awry.

      There are ships that can suck in the oil slicks and ocean water, dump 97% of the oil into the hold and pump the mostly clean water back into the sea, repeating the process as necessary.

      However, the EPA demanded that in the Macondo spill they not return that 3% water back to the ocean, but instead made them send out tankers to be filled up with the 3% water, which were then transported back to shore for decon.

      The obvious problem there was that the rate of processing of the sea water was limited by how fast those tankers could get out and back and unload, and what the onshore capacity was and what the onshore processing rate was. Being all finite quantities the rate was lowered tremendously from its potential.

      So, using dispersants was the next-least-bad. I used to know their names, but one of them was much less toxic than the other two. Still, the oil separating ships operating at full capacity would have been much better for the environment, but the government was here to help.

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
  3. Nature works fine for slow leaks. by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 2

    When will we come to the place where we realize that the Earth doesn't need us to clean up from stuff that it already produces, in the places it produces it? Millions of gallons of crude seep from the Gulf floor every day. Nature/bacteria takes care of it.

    Seeps are one thing. Blowouts are more than a tad faster. Nature takes a while and a big, concentrated, spill can cause a lot of havoc before nature gets around to clearing it.

    Granted we need to avoid making it worse while trying to make it better. For instance: The attempt to clean the shore after the Exxon Valdez spill washed away the local biosphere as well. Several years later the "cleaned" sections were still barren while the untouched sections had recovered very well. I recall a great picture of a boundary between the two. Think "washed down to bedrock and gravel" or "cold, rocky desert".

    --
    Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
  4. Why do environmentalist extremists hate penguins? by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 2

    I'm not sure why such a negative spin is being attached to these stories.

    As our press release clearly stated, new Corexit Ice(tm)(r), in 'fresh blast' or 'glacial menthol' scents, works harder, longer(tm) to protect pristine arctic environments. Apparently, eco-fascists want penguins to die, oil-soaked, when our competitor's inferior dispersants break down quickly under cold weather conditions...

  5. Not true by nojayuk · · Score: 2

    Dispersants are basically soap -- the chemicals in Corexit and similar dispersants are the same as you'll find in bottles of Mr Muscle and other household cleansers living under the kitchen sink. They work by breaking bulk oil into small droplets which increases the effective surface area of the oil and gives the bacteria that normally degrade oil a better opportunity to do their job properly. They don't cause the oil to submerge, a neat trick if it could be achieved given that crude oil is a lot denser than seawater.

  6. EPA told BP to stop spraying, BP bit its thumb. by FallenTabris · · Score: 2

    The Obama administration's folly (other than being helpful to BP in almost every way, including having government officials spout their bogus numbers on a whim), disallowing regulations present in much of europe (see "dead man's switch") that were removed under the Bush administration, and not doing anything to punish BP after it disobeyed the EPA and continued to spray Corexit despite being told to stop. Easy for you to say using millions of gallons of a neurotoxic carcinogen was the "next-least-bad" choice when you don't live in the area. People in the area are getting sick; marine life is hatching deformed. The toxic sludge created by corexit+oil is deadlier than either of them on their own, so please spare me this "next-least-bad" nonsense. The "obvious problem" is that we're allowing deepwater drilling when energy companies don't have any reason to give a damn when things go wrong; the government will be glad to help in PR cleanup, and they're not even obligated to pay back any claimants. There was a laptop with 10,000+ claimants' info on it that was magically "lost". Where's the government lawsuit on behalf of the people, if the government's here to help? In actuality, it's here to stand and watch while you and I get fucked.