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Science-based decision-making on the use of dispersants in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill
Citation:
Venosa, A., P. Anastas, M. Barron, R. Conmy, M. Greenberg, AND G. Wilson. Science-based decision-making on the use of dispersants in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Chapter 1, Oil Spill Remediation: Colloid Chemistry-Based Principles and Solutions. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ, , 1-18, (2014).
Impact/Purpose:
This chapter provides the authors’ perspective on deep-sea dispersant injection and identifies what research must be undertaken to answer the questions raised by the DWH oil spill tragedy.
Description:
Prior to the DWH incident, most (if not all) existing oil spill response knowledgewas based on surface spills and surface applications of dispersant. The behavior ofdispersants subsea was (and still is) less understood, and previous research had notfocused on the duration or quantity of dispersant used during the DWH incident.Recognizing the unique nature of this challenge and response, the U.S. EnvironmentalProtection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Coast Guard issued a directive requiring BPto implement a monitoring and assessment plan for both subsurface and surfaceapplications of dispersants as part of the BP oil spill response. The goal of themonitoring program was to evaluate daily the effects of dispersant application at thesource of discharge. This required an understanding of the fate and transport ofdispersed oil. As a result, monitoring efforts were extensive and multifaceted.Coordinated efforts included dissolved oxygen monitoring to ensure hypoxia was nottaking place, fluorometric measurements to track the oil plume, laser in situ scattering and transmissometry (LISST) sensor measurements to assess particle size distribution,oil chemistry analysis of collected samples, monitoring of currents and advective movement of the plume, conductivity/temperature/depth (CTD) profile datacollection, and Rototox analyses to estimate acute toxicity from the dispersed plume.Several government agencies and stakeholders were involved in this monitoring effort, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), theU.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO)Canada, academic researchers funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), BPresponse contractors, and the states bordering the Gulf of Mexico. As a result of this collaborative effort, the response community has learned a great deal about subsea dispersion, the behavior of dispersed oil plumes as they advect, how best to monitor oil plumes, and the acute toxicity of certain dispersants. But only those questions immediately relevant to the spill response were able to be addressed in the midst of the crisis and its immediate aftermath. Many more important scientific questions remain. This paper provides the authors’ perspective on deep-sea dispersant injection and identifies what research must be undertaken to answer the questions raised by the DWH oil spill tragedy.
