Hurricane could redistribute, reactivate oil

Hurricanes, oila potentmix

Oil cleanup efforts in the Gulf of Mexico will overlap with the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season that starts in June.

In the event of a major storm "oil on the bottom in shallower areas could be stirred up" due to strong wave action, Kelly Hawboldt, associate professor, faculty of engineering and applied science at Memorial University in St. John's, N.L., told CBC News Friday.

Hawboldt, an expert in environmental safeguards for offshore oil platforms, said that such an event could cause oil that had settled to the bottom to be redistributed, potentially ending up in surface areas of the ocean that are home to birds and other animals.

"Anything that occupies that water interface all the animals that hang out there they are all vulnerable to it," Hawboldt said.

A storm could also create a greater number of tar balls, globs of oil that coalesce and take a very long time to degrade. "That stuff getting redistributed on the coast would be very bad," she said.

Other experts have said that high winds could also hamper cleanup efforts, as boats aiding in the process will have to evacuate the area and booms used to contain slicks will be unable to remain in place.

Hawboldt said a storm could also help disperse slicks, a process which could increase microbial degradation of the oil.

"The more you break up the oil, the easier it is to degrade. This degradation is the function of nutrients, oxygen, sunlight," she explained, adding that it's a process that can take "days, months, years."

Overall, it's unclear what exactly will happen. The only precedent is Hurricane Katrina, which in 2005 led to nearly 50 oil spills in the lower Mississippi corridor, according to John Pine, director of the Disaster Science and Management Department of Geography and Anthropology at Louisiana State University. Pine published a case study on Hurricane Katrina and its impact on coastal and ocean environments in the June 2006 issue of Oceanography.

Pine looked at one spill, by Murphy Oil Corp., which involved the release of 3.1 million litres into a highly populated area called St. Bernard Parish, located southeast of New Orleans. Following the oil spill, 1.2 million litres were recovered, 742,000 litres were contained, 1.2 million litres evaporated and 22,712 litres were never recovered.

The Murphy spill affected 1,700 homes in a residential neighbourhood nearby and infiltrated local canals. It also affected marshes and other coastal environments.

One possible long-term impact is a decrease in biodiversity in the areas of the Gulf affected by the spill, said Hawboldt. She said that years after the Gulf War of the 1990s, in which an enormous amount of oil was dumped into the Persian Gulf, oil-degrading microbes flourished but other microbial populations dropped off dramatically.

Dispersants could do more harm than good

BP is currently adding gallons of dispersants to the oil leak, attempting to break up the oilvia chemical means. It's a move that has angered many environmental groups, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, as the type of dispersants used and their quantities are unknown.The agencyis concerned that essentially a huge scientific experiment that could have big implications for human and animal life is being carried out.

Dispersants are products with two component parts one half is more soluble in oil than in water and one half is more soluble in water than in oil. Composed of substances such as polymers, sulfates and glycol, these proprietary blends break up oil slicks into smaller droplets so that they can then be further degraded by microorganisms.

Environmental and public health groups say dispersants can cause human illness, and kill mammals and aquatic life. They also point out that manufacturers of the products do not have to disclose their ingredients.

According to Kelly Hawboldt, associate professor, faculty of engineering and applied science at Memorial University in St. John's, N.L, dispersants are chemically toxic if used in the wrong concentrations. She says that given the current scenario in the Gulf, in which the exact quantities of gushing oil are unknown, it's hard for scientists to know just how much dispersant to use. And with unknown quantities at play, the potential for misuse is high.

"I know they've been distributing boatloads," she told CBC News. "You wouldn't want to be putting [dispersants] on for the next month."