A new paradigm in oil spill modeling for decision making?

Contingency plans for large oil spills rely on conducting numerical simulations that would predict the probable transport and fate of oil. Oil spill models vary in complexity from ones that assume a straight-line trajectory of oil on the water surface without any change in oil properties to fully three-dimensional models that account to all processes affecting the fate of oil. The model proposed by Bourgault et al (2014 Environ. Res. Lett. http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/9/5/054001 9 http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/9/5/054001 ) is intermediate in complexity in a sense that it accounts for the temporal variation of surface currents, but does not consider the transformation of oil. We believe that such an approach has a great merit as a screening tool for decision making

Pool Effects on Longitudinal Dispersion in Streams

Surface storage (pools, pockets, and stagnant areas caused by woody debris, bars etc) is very important to solute transport in streams as it attenuates the peak of a spill but releases the solute back to the stream over a long time. The latter results in long exposure time of biota. Pools as fundamental stream morphology unit are commonly found in streams with mixed bed materials in pool-riffle or pool-step sequences. Fitting the transient storage model (TSM) to stream tracer test data may be problematic when pools present. A fully hydrodynamic 2-D, depth averaged advection-dispersion solute transport numerical simulation study on hypothetical stream with pool reveals that a pool can sharply enhance longitudinal spreading, cause a lag in the plume travel-time and radically increase solute residence time in the stream. These effects fade like a “wake” as the solute plume moves downstream of the pool. Further, these effects are strongly influenced by a dimensionless number derived from the 2-D transport equation − � � Q0DW t or � � q Dt, which outlines the relative transverse mixing intensity of a stream or river, where, of the stream reach concerned, W is the flow width, Q0 is the volumetric flow rate, q is the longitudinal flux density, and Dt is the transverse turbulent diffusion coefficient. The breakthrough curves (BTCs) downstream of a pool may be “heavy tailed ” which cannot be modeled accurately by the TSM. The internal transport and mixing condition (including the secondary circulations) in a pool together with the pool’s dimension determine the pool’s storage effects especially when �>> 1. Results also suggest that the falling limb of a BTC more accurately characterizes the pool's storage because the corresponding solute has more chance to sample the entire storage area

Bacteria forming drag-increasing streamers on a drop implicates complementary fates of rising deep-sea oil droplets

Competing time scales involved in rapid rising micro-droplets in comparison to substantially slower biodegradation processes at oil-water interfaces highlights a perplexing question: how do biotic processes occur and alter the fates of oil micro-droplets (<500 μm) in the 400 m thick Deepwater Horizon deep-sea plume? For instance, a 200 μm droplet traverses the plume in ~48 h, while known biodegradation processes require weeks to complete. Using a microfluidic platform allowing microcosm observations of a droplet passing through a bacterial suspension at ecologically relevant length and time scales, we discover that within minutes bacteria attach onto an oil droplet and extrude polymeric streamers that rapidly bundle into an elongated aggregate, drastically increasing drag that consequently slows droplet rising velocity. Results provide a key mechanism bridging competing scales and establish a potential pathway to biodegradation and sedimentations as well as substantially alter physical transport of droplets during a deep-sea oil spill with dispersant.Competing time scales involved in rapid rising micro-droplets in comparison to substantially slower biodegradation processes at oil-water interfaces highlights a perplexing question: how do biotic processes occur and alter the fates of oil micro-droplets (<500 μm) in the 400 m thick Deepwater Horizon deep-sea plume? For instance, a 200 μm droplet traverses the plume in ~48 h, while known biodegradation processes require weeks to complete. Using a microfluidic platform allowing microcosm observations of a droplet passing through a bacterial suspension at ecologically relevant length and time scales, we discover that within minutes bacteria attach onto an oil droplet and extrude polymeric streamers that rapidly bundle into an elongated aggregate, drastically increasing drag that consequently slows droplet rising velocity. Results provide a key mechanism bridging competing scales and establish a potential pathway to biodegradation and sedimentations as well as substantially alter physical transport of droplets during a deep-sea oil spill with dispersant

On the transport and landfall of marine oil spills, laboratory and field observations

The dynamics of crude oil and different surface ocean drifters were compared to study the physical processes that govern the transport and landfall of marine oil spills. In a wave-tank experiment, drifters with drogue did not follow oil slicks. However, patches of undrogued drifters and thin bamboo plates did spread at the same rate and in the same direction as the crude oil slicks. Then, the trajectories of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and 1300 drifters released near the spill source were investigated. Undrogued drifters were transported twice as fast as drogued drifters across the isobaths. 25% of the undrogued drifters landed, versus about 5% of the drogued ones, for the most part, on the same coastline locations where oil was found after Deepwater Horizon. Results highlight the importance of near surface gradients in controlling the cross-shelf transport and landing of surface material on the Gulf of Mexico's northern shores. •Undrogued drifters and crude oil slicks advect and disperse similarly in waves.•Undrogued drifters make landfall 5 times more than near-surface drogued drifters.•Near-surface vertical shear sets the cross-shelf transport of surface material

Dual effects of a dispersant and nutrient supplementation on weathered Endicott oil biodegradation in seawater

Laboratory-scale experiments were conducted to evaluate the biodegradation of physically (WAF) and chemically dispersed (CEWAF) Endicott oil in seawater (salinity: 29.1‰) from Prince William Sound, Alaska, under low nutrient (LN) (background seawater) and high nutrient (HN) (addition of 100 mg NO3-N/L and 10 mg PO4-P/L to background seawater) at 15 ± 0.5 °C for 42 days. The dispersant was Corexit 9500. The dispersed oil concentration of the WAF (0.019 g/L ± 0.002) was an order of magnitude lower than that in the CEWAF (0.363 g/L ± 0.038). While remaining negligible in the WAF, the total oil removal in the CEWAF was 26% and 44% in LN and HN treatments, respectively. Nutrient supplementation significantly accelerated the rate of oil biodegradation as confirmed by ANOVA coupled with Tukey’s test at 95% confidence intervals (α = 0.05). GC/MS analyses revealed that biodegradation affected mainly alkane compounds. In the CEWAF, O2 consumption, CO2 production and biomass were much larger in HN than in LN treatments, which suggests that chemical dispersion of oil coupled with high nutrient concentration could be very useful in terms of remediation strategies and effective responses to oil spill at sea

High Pressure Injection of Chemicals in a Gravel Beach

The remediation of beaches contaminated with oil includes the application of surfactants and/or the application of amendments to enhance oil biodegradation (i.e., bioremediation). This study focused on evaluating the practicability of the high pressure injection (HPI) of dissolved chemicals into the subsurface of a lentic Alaskan beach subjected to a 5 m tidal range. A conservative tracer, lithium, in a lithium bromide (LiBr) solution, was injected into the beach at 1.0 m depth near the mid-tide line. The flow rate was varied between 1.0 and 1.5 L/min, and the resulting injection pressure varied between 3 m and 6 m of water. The concentration of the injected tracer was measured from four surrounding monitoring wells at multiple depths. The HPI associated with a flow rate of 1.5 L/min resulted in a Darcy flux in the cross-shore direction at 1.15 &times; 10&minus;5 m/s compared to that of 7.5 &times; 10&minus;6 m/s under normal conditions. The HPI, thus, enhanced the hydraulic conveyance of the beach. The results revealed that the tracer plume dispersed an area of ~12 m2 within 24 h. These results suggest that deep injection of solutions into a gravel beach is a viable approach for remediating beaches