Oil Dispersants Used During Gulf Spill Degrade Slowly In Cold Water

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."

Comments

Or, we could have just done nothing...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Or, we could have just done nothing...

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Re:Or, we could have just done nothing...

[MtHuurne]

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.

The goal was to hide, not solve, the problem.

[RocketRabbit]

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.

Re:The goal was to hide, not solve, the problem.

[the eric conspiracy]

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.

Re:The goal was to hide, not solve, the problem.

[bill_mcgonigle]

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.