BP Oil Spill

Oil flowed for eighty-seven days, leaking a total of four point nine million barrels of oil. The amount of oil spilt during the Deep Horizon accident would make this the largest accidental oil spill in history. This spill had a detrimental affect the environment, bringing on many investigations and lawsuits. On January 5,2011 the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling released their final report. The panel found that the explosion was a result of

Oil constantly surrounds consumers throughout the world, whether it be in transportation, electricity, and heating. Since consumers use, transportation, electricity, and heating every day, the demand for oil has surged and thus, multiple companies race to provide this dark elixir promptly. As all thoughts concentrate on the speed in which oil becomes transported, reckless mistakes happen, which swiftly unleashes the toxic elixir into the ocean. The oil then resides in the water with death looming over its shoulder; countless birds, mammals, and fish become poisoned by the oil, which proves lethal. However, an antidote, colonies of microscopic bacteria that consume oil can be used to clean the oil pollution. Although oil satisfies humans with

In an attempt to clean up, the dispersant “Corexit 9580” was developed and although it assisted in cleanup, it was not tested for toxicity and caused the aforementioned blood and organ disorders that cleanup crews subsequently experienced. Mechanical cleanup was initiated using booms and skimmers, but proved to not be very effective as the thick oil and kelp tended to often clog the equipment. High pressure hot water was also used to remove the oil but was discontinued because it kept on destroying microorganisms and disrupting the food chain and preventing biodegradation.

In this paper I will be discussing the effects of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on microbes in different locations of the Gulf Coast. A study done by Lamendella et al. (2012) investigated the effect of the oil on samples of microbes collected from a beach that was heavily impacted by the spill. Another investigation took a look at microbes on surface sediment samples from 64 different sites (Mason et al., 2014). A third study researched the past, present, and possible future responses of microbial communities, and how they have evolved to adapt to oil that was failed to be removed (Kimes et al., 2014).

On April 20, 2010 The Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded and sunk into the Gulf of Mexico at Macondo MC252. Eleven people were killed as a result. The spill released more than 4 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. According to various reports this was one of the worst ecological disasters in US History next to the Exxon Valdez. As a result of this incident, a plume appeared in the surrounding area. “This plume was initially identified by elevated levels of methane and light aromatic hydrocarbons (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and total xylenes, referred to collectively as BTEX).” (Reddy et al., 2011)

The Deepwater Horizon was a drilling rig explosion that occurred April 20, 2010, and ended in a fire. The rig was owned and operated by Transocean, and the drilling was done by BP in the Macondo Prospect oil field (McGill & Schwartz, 2010). Due to drilling below sea level, the explosion caused a fire and resulted in the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon, the death of 11 people and injured 17 others. The dangerous hydrocarbon gas that surrounded the blowout preventor malfunction, which caused the gas to encounter an ignition source was the cause of the explosion, and it led to massive oil spills in the offshore of the Gulf of Mexico (Crandall et al., 2014). It was considered to be the largest accidental oil spill in the world and an environmental

April 20th, 2010 an explosion occurred that created what would be considered one of the worst oil spills in U.S. history. The Deepwater Horizon Oil Rig was being leased by BP Oil Company and was located only about 40 miles off of the coast of Louisiana. A surge of natural gas that made its way to the Horizon rig’s platform ignited, causing the rig to capsize and sink, thus breaking risers that were being used to counteract the large amount of pressure from oil and natural gasses (Pallardy, 2015). The explosion killed 11 workers and injured 17 others and caused a massive leak in the oil wellhead. It took 87 days for the wellhead to be closed and it is estimated that over that time around 210 million gallons

The first ‘courtship’ period was primarily a research period, when bioremediation was little known outside the microbiology or hazardous waste community. Many published articles from the 1970s and earlier documented the process of microbial degradation of oil, both in the laboratory and in field trials. A number of scientific papers on this topic were published during the 1970s and 1980s, including several review papers covering mechanisms of biodegradation, and papers presenting results from controlled field experiments measuring degradation rates in various environments. Several studies following major oil spills like the Amoco Cadiz measured oil degradation in the environment and confirmed previously published results from laboratory studies (Hoff, 1993). These works established a basic understanding of biodegradation of oil as an important component of the process known as

Oil spills can be fixed, but oftentimes put so much pollution into the environment that no solution can take place quickly enough to stop the damages. Sunlight can help degrade some of the oil if exposed for long enough. (Sadd 3) In his article, Sadd also states that sometimes microorganisms act as “oil-eating” creatures through a process called natural biodegrading. (3) In most cases the remainder of the oil will wash up on coasts across the country, which can still cause

Oil exploration clean-up techniques Techniques The Containment Boom Chemical Detergents The Sponge Bacteria Advantages Cheap and easy Disadvantages Only good when there are (35) ________________ ____________________ Good for treating (36) _________ Chemicals remain in the water + ___________________________ kill marine life. Oil remains permanently in the The sponge mats turn into sponge. (37) _______________________ ___________________________ (39) _______________________ Cheap Easy to administer Totally (38) _________________ ___________________________

In quantitative terms, crude oil is one of the most important organic pollutants in marine environment and it has been estimated that worldwide somewhere between 1.7- 8.8×106 tons of petroleum hydrocarbons impact marine waters and estuaries annually. Reports have been appearing since last three decades on the biodegradability of crude oil by bacteria which can use hydrocarbons as source of carbon and energy. A way to mitigate the effects of oil spills is bioremediation.

The oil spills from an off-shore oil rig or tanker can do tremendous damage to the esosystem in the area of the spill and expand over vast regions to affect coastlines and indigenous wildlife hundreds of miles away. Cleaning oil spills, especially in a marine environment is important and it is a challenging task. The methods currently used to clean oil in water can be divided into following categories: using booms and skimmer; using oil solidifier and dispersants; adding biological agents to speed up the oil breakdown; or in-situ burning of oil spills. However, only the skimmers were designed to recover the spill oil.1

The first solution, bioremediation, is the most prominent and promising new innovation accessible to clean the oil spills, which possibly could uproot the oil in an innocuous way, from even the most obstinate and untidy situations, where it has sunk into shorelines and mangrove bogs, and even in submerged oil crest. Some naturally occurring microbes that process crude oil are known to exist in the ocean (“PROOYEN”). Be that as it may, the measure of oil spouting into the sea as a consequence of the BP oil spill is much

In part one (Influence of Crude Oil on prokaryotes) the following question will be answered; (1) which bacterial species in the Biello and Robinson articles gave off an impression of being best at separating the raw petroleum?

Oil Pollution in Earth’s oceans is a tremendous problem the environment, organisms, and humans are facing today. Pollution from petroleum products are extremely toxic to many marine organisms, including microorganisms that are the support of the aquatic food chain. Oil is a substance that can disperse under and across the surface of water for thousands of meters. Shorelines are left covered with this oil and it can be hard to remove (Friedland). The United States depends enormously on oil. On average, the United States uses 793 million gallons of oil per day, with a cost of $2 billion dollars each day. It is the world’s biggest oil consumer. The combined oil consumption of Japan, Russia, China, and India are far way less than that of the U.S (“The Great Invisible Discussion Guide”). Burning oil produces a big amount of greenhouse gases. It is “the largest single fuel of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S” (“The Great Invisible Discussion Guide”). Having dependence on oil can have significant costs, including an increased risk of oil spills. One of the biggest oil leaks occurred in 2010. It happened in an offshore platform on a BP operation in the Gulf of Mexico (Friedland).