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Exxon Valdez Oil Deepwater Horizon Oil Oil Spill Overview and Recommendatio ns for Moving Forward ward B. Overton, Ph.D. ofessor Emeritus pt of Environmental Sciences hool of Coast and Environment uisiana State University ton Rouge LA 70803

BP oil spill

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Presentation by Ed Overton on BP Oil Spill damage

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Page 1: BP oil spill

Exxon Valdez Oil

Deepwater Horizon Oil

Oil Spill Overview and

Recommendations for Moving

Forward

Edward B. Overton, Ph.D.Professor EmeritusDept of Environmental SciencesSchool of Coast and EnvironmentLouisiana State UniversityBaton Rouge LA 70803

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Deepwater Horizon Spill

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Overview of the Spill

• Began April 20, 2010 with the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico

• Capped on July 15, 2010

• Estimates of 35,000-60,000 barrels of crude oil flowed from the well per day, covering 2,500 square miles

• >5M barrels of oil spilled – Largest spill in history

• >1M barrels of dispersant used at depth and on the surface

• Impact to people, environment, economy, and geology

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7721 milesof coastline in

Louisiana

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On Shore Oil

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Offshore Oil

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Thick, skimable, dispersible oil

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Oil after dispersant application

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Source oil•oil at depth•oil on surface•dispersed oil at depth•dispersed oil on surface

Weathered oils•dissolved and modified oils at depth•dispersed weathered oils on surface•dispersed dissolved and modified oil at depth•dispersed weathered oil on surface

Impacts•Ecological•Geological•Economic• Sociological

Dispersed

Source

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Toxic & StickyFloating

StickyFloatingSinking?

Tarball Nuisance

Surface Oil Weathering

GunkyFloatingSinking

Days Weeks Months

Loss of Light Ends

Saturates and AromaticsDegraded

Asphaltene

Residue

The Effects of Weathering on Spilled Oil

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CH4 CO2Reduced form Oxidized form

O2HYDROCARBONS“e” donor

+ microorganisms

no O2 very very slow

fast

HYDROCARBONS

aerobic

anaerobic

chlorocarbons

Chlorocarbons“e” acceptor

Slow

Fast (relatively!)

Oxidation-replace H with more electronegative elementReduction- replace electronegative element with H

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Three Scenarioswhat’s going to happen?

Best Case• No further leaks with little or no permanent effect to the environment and food

chain

• Nature cleans environment with limited human intervention

Worst Case could encompass one or more of the following: • Further substantial leakage• Long term changes to food chain

• Toxicity and oxygen depletion

Most Likely Outcome• Gulf spill follows the scenario set by the Valdez spill (gradual return 3-5 yrs)

– Variables:

• Environmental (temperature and weather) conditions

• Greater use of dispersants and ISB

• Depth of spill and dispersant use at depth

• Danger of over-remediation

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Recovery

Exxon Valdez Oil Spill

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Toxic & sticky sticky Tarball nuisance

oil weathering

Oil Weathering

Exxon Valdez

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Most of the oiled mussels were as clean as unoiled mussels by 1992-93 (3-4 years)

Chemical Contamination

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Oil Removal Options: 3 tools in Toolbox:• Chemical

• Mechanical

• In-situ burning

Valdez/Ixtoc1 and other oil spills lessons learned: • Most but not all environmental indicators return

to normal in 3-5 annual cycles.

• Oil Spills are acute events, not a chronic events

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ISB

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Areal Dispersant Application

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Near shore skimmers

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A WhaleOcean Skimmer?

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Jack Wood, TrusteeThe Wood Family Trust21859 Angeli PlaceGrass Valley, CA 95949530-320-7200 (Cell)

Deeboom

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Gulf Shores/Orange BeachJuly 17, 2010

What do you do with this?

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Sand Berms

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Human Health Exposures•Toxicity of semivolatiles?•Routes of exposure•Consumption of seafood?

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•Develop transparent information management criteria/protocols in the age of Google

•Understand ecology and impacts of releases at-depth

•Catalogue and contact area experts in marine and coastal ecology, oceanography

•Evaluate the tradeoff for offshore verses near-shore impacts

•Evaluate the efficacy of offshore cleanup options

•Have in place a public cleanup technology review and evaluation system

Some Future Recommendations

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•Develop a catalog of oil weathering properties for all production zones

•Understand the chemistry of various oils and their weathered products

•Develop remote sensing for accurate detection of spreading oil patches

•Develop contamination free at depth sampling and monitoring capability

•Develop human health exposure risk for response and cleanup workers

•Develop an understanding of impact on seafood and duration of seafood impacts

•Develop rapid response seafood impact detection capability

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•Develop capability for 24 hour cleanup operations

•Develop cleanup skimming technology for offshore, near-shore and on-shore

•Develop response technology use paradigms (skimming, dispersing, ISB)

• Develop dispersing efficacy and impacts criteria

•Understand impacts of dispersant use at depth and on the surface

•Re-examine and re-engineer the safety features for well shutdown

•Examine and evaluate Incident Command Structure

•Keep incident response technical/scientific based, not political

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Conclusion:•Hope containment holds, relief wells provide final plugging

•Remove as much residual oil as possible off the surface

•Support natural recovery processes

•Use portion of royalty income to partially response needs

•Talk the talk, walk the walk as far as environmental health and safety is concerned

•Develop a sensible energy policy for the US