*[Enwl-eng] Oil Eating Bacteria Checked Adverse Impacts ofDeepwater Horizon Oil Spill

[ENWLine]

*An explosion in oil-munching bacteria made fast work of BP oil spill,
scientist says*

Mark Schleifstein, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune
April 08, 2013

Much of the oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico after the Deepwater
Horizon explosion in 2010 disappeared within weeks of the capping of
BP's Macondo well on July 15, digested by a massive explosion in
oil-eating microorganisms, said Terry Hazen, a professor of
environmental biology at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, during a
Monday panel at the national conference of the American Chemical Society
in New Orleans.

Illustration Omitted:
University of Tennessee-Knoxville environmental biology professor
Terry Hazen at the American Chemical Society national meeting on Monday.
Mark Schleifstein, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune

Hazen was one of a team of researchers tracking the movement of oil in
the Gulf from July 27 to August 26, 2010, from aboard four research ships.

Much of the oil and methane gas released by the well was originally
found to be moving in a plume 3,600 feet below the surface to the
southwest of the Macondo well site.

An initial scientific paper in August 2010 concluded that the tiny
droplets of oil and oily material in the plume already were rapidly
disappearing within a few days after the well was capped.

Further research found that there was a 10-fold increase in several
types of bacteria that munch on oil molecules, Hazen said. Over time,
the make-up of the different types of bacteria changed to those that
were eating different toxic chemical compounds left behind when the oil
was eaten by the first organisms, he said.

Illustration Omitted:
The American Chemical Society's 245th national conference is
meeting in New Orleans with the theme, "CHEF - The Chemistry of Energy
and Food." American Chemical Society

While the rapid disappearance of oil was a largely positive sign, Hazen
said it's still unclear whether the explosion in growth of a few
oil-eating bacteria types might have itself disrupted the deepwater Gulf
ecosystem. Meanwhile, oil that came to the surface also rapidly
exhausted available nutrients, competing with naturally-occurring algae
in the warm Gulf waters, he said.

Scientists also are unsure whether the oil and its cleanup directly
affected the ecosystem before it was biodegraded and dispersed, he said.

Also unanswered, Hazen said, is how resilient the Gulf is to future
combinations of hurricanes, oil spills, floodwaters from the Midwest,
and the industrial and human wastes entering the Gulf from the
Mississippi and other rivers.

Similar potential good news was delivered by Gabriel Kasozi, a chemistry
researcher at Makerere University Kampala in Uganda, who has been part
of a team of researchers from the University of Florida studying the BP
oil that washed into wetlands in Barataria Bay.

Kasozi said that a study of an oiled patch of wetlands at St. Mary's
Point in the northern part of the bay found that key chemical
constituents largely disappeared after a year of weathering. The
findings could provide some hope for state officials concerned about
stubborn areas of oiled wetlands scattered across 200 miles of
Louisiana's coastline.

However, Kasozi pointed out that the test area was several yards inland
from the shoreline, and it was unclear whether oiled wetland grasses
closer to the water line had disappeared, as they have elsewhere.

As with similar research results released in peer-reviewed scientific
magazines or at other scientific meetings, the results of the two
researchers represent only small slices of the wide body of research
being conducted into the effects of the oil spill.

Much of that research is being done to support the ongoing lawsuits by
the federal government against BP and other parties believed responsible
for the spill, and many of the results of that research are still being
withheld from the public until the legal battle is over.

In addition to the lawsuits being heard in U.S. District Court in New
Orleans, the results of those studies will be used as part of the
Natural Resource Damage Assessment process required under the federal
Oil Pollution Act. Under that process, BP, federal agencies and the
states will determine what damage was caused by the spill and come up
with projects aimed at mitigating the damage or compensating the public
for lost resources.



http://www.nola.com/environment/index.ssf/2013/04/an_explosion_in_oil-munching_b.html


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Sent: Tuesday, April 30, 2013 1:30 PM
Subject: News: Oil Eating Bacteria Checked Adverse Impacts of Deepwater
Horizon Oil Spill


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