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Determining Which Dispersants Will Be Effective In Future Deepwater Oil Spills
Citation:
Yeardley, R. AND A. Venosa. Determining Which Dispersants Will Be Effective In Future Deepwater Oil Spills. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC, EPA/600/F-12/628, 2012.
Impact/Purpose:
By assessing which dispersants are effective at low temperatures, data from this and similar studies will help to mitigate the environmental effects of future deepwater oil spills. This study also provides information useful in choosing effective dispersants for surface spills. The refinement of dispersant testing protocols done in this study will help in further studies that attempt to add to the knowledge of the effectiveness of dispersants to protect the environment from oil spills.
Description:
Deepwater spills result in oil distributed from deep in the water column to the water surface. The objective of this study was to test eight of the available dispersants (including Corexit 9500A, which was used extensively on the 2010 Deepwater Horizon Spill) on South Louisiana Crude (SLC) oil under temperature conditions similar to both the deep sea (5 °C) and in the top 5 m (25 °C) in the Gulf. SLC is similar in composition to the Mississippi Canyon Block 252 oil from the Gulf of Mexico spill. These same eight products were also tested for acute toxicity to aquatic organisms in a separate EPA study.