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Guidance For The Bioremediation Of Oil-Contaminated Wetlands, Marshes, And Marine Shorelines
Citation:
VENOSA, A. D. AND X. Zhu. Guidance For The Bioremediation Of Oil-Contaminated Wetlands, Marshes, And Marine Shorelines. Chapter 5, M. Fingerman; R. Nagabhushanam (ed.), Bioremediation of Aquatic and Terrestial Ecosystems, ISBN 9781578083640. CRC Press - Taylor & Francis Group, LLC, Boca Raton, FL, , 141-172, (2005).
Impact/Purpose:
To summarize guidance documents on the bioremediation of marine shorelines, freshwater wetlands and salt marshes.
Description:
Marine shorelines are important public and ecological resources that serve as a home to a variety of wildlife and provide public recreation. Marine oil spills, particularly large scale spill accidents, have posed great threats and cause extensive damage to the marine coastal environments. Inland oil spills have received much less attention. However, freshwater spills are more common, with more than 2000 oil spills, on average, taking place each year in the inland waters of the continental United States. Although freshwater spills tend to be of a smaller volume than their marine counterparts, they have a greater potential to endanger public health and the environment because they often occur within populated areas and may directly contaminate surface water and groundwater supplies. Catastrophic accidents have increased public awareness about the risks involved in the storage and transportation of oil and oil products and have prompted more stringent regulations, such as the enactment of the 1990 Oil Pollution Act by Congress. Because oil is so widely used and leakage will continue to occur, thus it is essential that we have effective countermeasures to deal with the problem. Coastal wetlands are influenced by tidal action and provide natural barriers to shoreline erosion, habitats for a wide range of widelife including endangered species, and key sources of organic materials and nutrients for marine communities. The threat of crude oil contamination to coastal wetlands is high in certain parts of the U.S., such as along the Gulf of Mexico. Bioremediation is the act of adding materials to contaminated environments to cause an acceleration of the natural biodegradation processes. To achieve cleanup of oil spills, bioremediation has emerged as a treatment option for oil removal. Bioremediation has proven to be a cost-effective treatment tool, in cleaning certain oil-contaminated environments. This chapter summarizes the guidance documents on the bioremediation of marine shorelines, freshwater wetlands and salt marshes.
