Controversies in Aquatic Sciences

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith S. Weis
Keyword(s):  
Oil Spills ◽  
Harmful Effect ◽  
Critical Issue ◽  
Water Soluble ◽  
Fuel Oil ◽  
Scientific Debate ◽  
Scientific Controversies ◽  
Shoreline Protection ◽  
Chemical Companies ◽  
Aquatic Sciences

The aquatic sciences have their share of scientific controversies. In some cases the controversy is the classic situation of economic benefit versus environmental protection; in other cases it involves “genuine” scientific debate over uncertainties of the science or debate over what management option is optimal. This chapter discusses two pollution cases that pit scientists from universities or government agencies against those supported by the industry responsible for the pollution. Additional controversies that are also discussed are a disagreement over management options for shoreline protection, and a scientific disagreement over uncertainties in data on fish populations, which is usually the reason for controversies over fisheries. Controversies over effects of pollution often focus on how much (what concentration) of a chemical is needed to produce a certain harmful effect. Chemical companies tend to argue that levels of a chemical found in the environment are too low to cause problems, while environmentalists typically contend that lower levels can be harmful. One chemical about which there is sometimes controversy is oil. In the case of oil spills, debate commonly centers on how long the effects of pollution last. Oil degrades over time, resulting in less oil in the environment. The critical issue here is: When does this degradation reach a point where spilled oil is no longer harmful? Oil is a complex combination of various hydrocarbons that generally floats on water, although some lighter-weight components (the water-soluble fraction) dissolve. Weathering is a process that takes place in the air and water, in which the lightweight components evaporate, thus leaving the heavier components (e.g., tar), which have traditionally been viewed as less toxic. When oil comes into shallow water and marshes, it can coat and smother resident communities. It can sink below the surface of beaches and marshes and remain there for many years. Oil in marsh sediments undergoes some microbial breakdown but very slowly. Effects of a small oil spill (190,000 gallons of number 2 fuel oil) in Falmouth, Massachusetts, in the late 1960s lasted for over a decade, according to Sanders et al. (1980).

Effects of Water Soluble Extracts of Oil on Phytoplankton

1973 ◽  
Vol 1973 (1) ◽  
pp. 809-813 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Nuzzi
Keyword(s):  
Oil Spills ◽  
Water Soluble ◽  
Fuel Oil ◽  
Natural Phytoplankton

ABSTRACT Methods routinely employed in the cleanup of oil spills generally are intended to remove the oil to the level of invisibility, at which point it has been considered by many to be harmless or its effects negligible. This paper presents evidence indicating that soluble constituents of No. 2 fuel oil are toxic to phytoplankton cultured axenically and also exert an effect on natural phytoplankton populations.

SENSITIVITY OF 39 ALASKAN MARINE SPECIES TO COOK INLET CRUDE OIL AND NO. 2 FUEL OIL

1979 ◽  
Vol 1979 (1) ◽  
pp. 549-554 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stanley D. Rice ◽  
Adam Moles ◽  
Tamara L. Taylor ◽  
John F. Karinen
Keyword(s):  
Crude Oil ◽  
Aromatic Hydrocarbons ◽  
Oil Spills ◽  
Soluble Fraction ◽  
Marine Species ◽  
Water Soluble ◽  
Fuel Oil ◽  
Cook Inlet ◽  
Test Conditions ◽  
Intertidal Environments

ABSTRACT The sensitivities of 39 subarctic Alaskan species of marine fish and invertebrates to water-soluble fractions of Cook Inlet crude oil and No. 2 fuel oil were determined. This is the largest group of animals ever tested under similar test conditions with the same petroleum oils and analytical methods. Organisms bioassayed represent several habitats, six phyla, and 39 species including fish (9), arthropods (9), molluscs (13), echinoderms (4), annelids (2), and nemer-teans (2). Sensitivities were determined by 96-hour static bioassays. Concentrations of selected aromatic hydrocarbons were determined by gas chromatography; concentrations of paraffins were determined by infrared spectrophotometry. Although sensitivity generally increased from lower invertebrates to higher invertebrates, and from higher invertebrates to fish, sensitivity was better correlated to habitat. Pelagic fish and shrimp were the most sensitive animals to Cook Inlet crude oil with 96-h median tolerance limits (TLm's) from 1–3 mg/l total aromatic hydrocarbons. Benthic animals, including fish, crabs, and scallops were moderately tolerant (TLm's to Cook Inlet crude oil of 3–8 mg/l total aromatic hydrocarbons). Intertidal animals, including fish, crabs, and starfish, and many molluscs, were the most tolerant forms to water-soluble fraction of petroleum (TLm's greater than 8–12 mg/l of total aromatic hydrocarbons). Most of the intertidal animals were not killed by static oil exposures. No. 2 fuel oil was more toxic to most species than Cook Inlet crude oil. Sensitive pelagic animals are not necessarily more vulnerable to oil spills than tolerant intertidal forms — oil may damage intertidal environments more easily and adverse effects may persist longer than in damaged pelagic environments.

scholarly journals Effect of long term natural weathering on oil composition: study of the 41-years-old Amoco Cadiz and 20-years-old Erika oil spills

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronan Jézéquel ◽  
Julien Guyomarch ◽  
Justine Receveur ◽  
Stéphane Le Floch
Keyword(s):  
Methylene Chloride ◽  
Oil Spills ◽  
Weather Conditions ◽  
Fuel Oil ◽  
Terrestrial Vegetation ◽  
Oil Composition ◽  
Heavy Fuel Oil ◽  
Steering Mechanism ◽  
Weathered Oil ◽  
Specific Degradation

On 16 March 1978, the oil tanker the Amoco Cadiz, transporting 223,000 tons of crude oil and 4,000 tons of bunker fuel oil, suffered a failure of her steering mechanism and ran aground on Portsall Rocks, on the Breton coast. The entire cargo spilled out as the breakers split the vessel in two, progressively polluting 360 km of French shoreline from Brest to Saint Brieuc. This was the largest oil spill caused by a tanker grounding ever recorded in the world. The consequences of this accident were significant, and it caused the French Government to revise its oil response plan (the Polmar Plan), to acquire equipment stocks (Polmar stockpiles), to impose traffic lanes in the Channel and to create Cedre. On 12 December 1999, the tanker Erika broke up and sank off the coast of Brittany (France) leading to the spill of 20,000 tons of a heavy fuel oil. 400 km of the French Atlantic coastline were polluted. Because of the characteristics of the oil (a very heavy fuel oil with a high content of light cracking oil) and the severe weather conditions (a centennial storm with spring tides) when the oil came on shore, the Erika spill was one of the most severe accidental releases of oil along the French coastlines. All types of habitat were concerned, and pollution reached the supratidal zone affecting terrestrial vegetation and lichens. In 2019, respectively 41 years and 20 years after these major oil spills affecting the French shoreline, a sampling round was conducted at two sites recorded to present some residual traces of oil. Samples of weathered oil were collected, extracted with methylene chloride and then purified through an alumina-silica microcolumn. SARA fractionation and GC-MS analyses were performed in order to assess respectively the total degradation of the weathered oil (amount of saturates, aromatics and polar fraction) and the specific degradation of nalkanes from n-C9 to n-C40, biomarkers (such as terpanes, hopanes and steranes) and PAHs (parents and alkylated derivatives).

Analyses of Aromatic Hydrocarbons in Intertidal Sediments Resulting from Two Spills of No. 2 Fuel Oil in Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts

1978 ◽  
Vol 35 (5) ◽  
pp. 510-520 ◽  
Author(s):  
John M. Teal ◽  
Kathryn Burns ◽  
John Farrington
Keyword(s):  
Gas Chromatography ◽  
Oil Spill ◽  
Aromatic Hydrocarbons ◽  
Oil Spills ◽  
Oil Pollution ◽  
Fuel Oil ◽  
Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometry ◽  
Glass Capillary ◽  
Marsh Sediments ◽  
Insight Into

We have analyzed the two- and three-ring aromatic hydrocarbons from the Wild Harbor oil spill in September 1969 and the Winsor Cove oil spill in October 1974, in intertidal marsh sediments, using glass capillary gas-chromatographic and mass-fragmentographic analyses. Naphthalenes with 0–3 alkyl substitutions and phenanthrenes with 0–2 substitutions decreased in concentration with time in surface sediments. The more substituted aromatics decreased relatively less and in some cases actually increased in absolute concentration. The changes in composition of the aromatic fraction have potential consequences for the ecosystem and provide insight into geochemical processes of oil weathering. Key words: oil pollution, aromatic hydrocarbons; gas chromatography; gas chromatography–mass spectrometry; geochemistry; marsh; sediments; oil spills

A REVIEW OF EXPERIMENTAL SHORELINE OIL SPILLS

1993 ◽  
Vol 1993 (1) ◽  
pp. 583-590 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. M. Baker ◽  
D. I. Little ◽  
E. H. Owens
Keyword(s):  
Research And Development ◽  
Oil Spill ◽  
Field Experiments ◽  
Oil Spills ◽  
Toxicity Testing ◽  
Ecological Effects ◽  
Rocky Intertidal ◽  
Habitat Types ◽  
Shoreline Protection ◽  
Oil Type

ABSTRACT Oil spill research and development has involved a large number of experiments to evaluate the effectiveness and the effects of marine shoreline protection and cleanup techniques. Considerable knowledge has accumulated from laboratory and wave tank studies, and there have also been a number of field experiments, in which oil was intentionally spilled on shorelines under controlled conditions. This review summarizes those field experiments, which are grouped in five major habitat types: rocky intertidal, cobble/pebble/gravel, sand/mud, saltmarshes, and mangroves/seagrasses. Tables included in the paper itemize the oil type and volume, location and substrate character, number and size of plots, response techniques tested, and referenced publications. This information is then used to combine understanding of the effectiveness of cleanup with understanding of the ecological effects of cleanup methods, compared with those of untreated oil. It is very difficult to achieve this type of information and understanding from toxicity testing or from spills of opportunity.

CALIFORNIA'S GNOME TRAJECTORY INITIATIVE TO DETERMINE BEST ACHIEVABLE PROTECTION FOR SENSITIVE SHORELINE RESOURCES FROM VESSEL OIL SPILLS

2005 ◽  
Vol 2005 (1) ◽  
pp. 161-165
Author(s):  
Carl Jochums ◽  
Glen Watabyashi ◽  
Heather Parker-Hall
Keyword(s):  
Oil Spill ◽  
Oil Spills ◽  
Oil Pollution ◽  
Time Intervals ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Environmental Consequences ◽  
Playing Field ◽  
Response Planning ◽  
Objective Standard ◽  
Shoreline Protection

ABSTRACT California has initiated a new approach to create an objective standard and regulate best achievable protection (BAP) for sensitive shoreline protection from vessel spills. The Oil Pollution Act (OPA 90) and California's Lempert-Keene-Seastrand Oil Spill Prevention and Response Act (SB 2040) mandate BAP as the standard for preparedness and response. BAP poses the critical response planning questions: “How much response resources should industry provide?” and “In what timeframes should those resources be deployed?” Prior California regulations intended to achieve BAP by relying on vessels to identify hazards, trajectories, environmental consequences, and response resource plans, produced less than optimal results in many instances. Though effective in theory, this approach resulted in fuzzy consequences and vague arrangements for adequate response. Because it was neither clear what sites would be protected (and what response resources would be required) nor at what time, and because it was consequentially not clear what response resources would be engaged to execute protection, drilling C-plans became obtuse. This in turn fostered “paper tiger” OSROs and resulted in an uneven playing field for business competitors. In Californias new approach, OSPR used many of the original concepts to identify BAP by using the NOAA GNOME oil spill model for generic vessel risk threats for California ports and along the California coast. This paper explains the theory, steps, and details. As a result of this process, BAP has been defined in terms of specific site deployments at specific time intervals and presented in tables in regulation. This new approach provides a number of benefits and solutions to the difficult issues in the former approach, including a standard for BAP.

SUBLETHAL INJURY TO RED MANGROVES TWO YEARS AFTER OILING1

1997 ◽  
Vol 1997 (1) ◽  
pp. 1040-1041 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sally C. Levings ◽  
Stephen D. Garrity ◽  
Edward S. Van Vleet ◽  
Dana L. Wetzel
Keyword(s):  
Shoot Growth ◽  
Oil Spills ◽  
Specific Growth ◽  
Petroleum Products ◽  
Fuel Oil ◽  
Detailed Data ◽  
Long Term Effects ◽  
Sublethal Injury ◽  
Species Specific

ABSTRACT More than 300,000 gallons of refined petroleum products were discharged near the entrance to Tampa Bay, Florida on August 10, 1993. Floating slicks and sunken oil patty (no. 6 fuel oil) subsequently entered Boca Ciega Bay through John's Pass and washed or stranded on four mangrove keys inside the pass. Between one and two years after the spill, surviving red mangroves showed graded negative responses to oil in 4 of 4 measures of shoot growth and production. Sublethal, long-term effects of oil spills may be more common than reported, but detection requires detailed data on species-specific growth and production patterns with respect to oiling.

scholarly journals Tropical Storm Agnes Pennsylvania's Torrey Canyon

1973 ◽  
Vol 1973 (1) ◽  
pp. 569-577
Author(s):  
Robert Kaiser ◽  
Donald Jones ◽  
Howard Lamp'l
Keyword(s):  
Oil Spill ◽  
Oil Spills ◽  
Oil Pollution ◽  
Petroleum Products ◽  
Tropical Storm ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Fuel Oil ◽  
Federal State ◽  
Middle Atlantic ◽  
Schuylkill River

ABSTRACT This paper presents the “Agnes Story” disaster as related to the largest inland oil spill experienced in the history of the U.S. and actions taken by EPA in coping with the problem. Contrasted to the massive oceanic spill of the TORREY CANYON, other major ship oil pollution disasters, the Santa Barbara and Gulf of Mexico offshore platform oil spills, the oil pollution resulting from the flooding produced by Tropical Storm Agnes required unprecedented actions by many governmental agencies. The inland rivers of the Middle Atlantic area experienced spills of petroleum products ranging from over 3,000,000 gallons of No. 2 fuel oil, gasoline and kerosene from storage tanks in Big Flats / Elmira, N.Y. (just north of the Pennsylvania border) to 6,000,000–8,000,000 gallons of black, highly metallic waste oil and sludge from an oil reclamation plant on the Schuylkill River. The aftermath of this gigantic inland oil spill was oil and gasoline soaked fields, oil coated trees, farm houses, homes, factories, an airport, and hundreds of stranded oil puddles, ponds and lagoons as the rivers receded to normal levels. The record setting flood stage along several miles of both the Schuylkill and Susquehanna Rivers and their tributaries was recorded vividly ashore on trees and buildings as if by a black grease pencil, drawing attention to the most widespread property damage suffered from the most devastating storm in recorded U.S. history. Cleanup of the spilled oil in the midst of other rescue and restorative actions by Federal, State and Municipal agencies was fraught with emergency response problems including: identification of major impact points, availability of resources for response actions, coordination of response actions, activation of cleanup contractors, meeting administrative requirements, and the structure for making command decisions. Along with these requirements were technical decisions to be made concerning methods of physical removal procedures, containment systems, chemical treating agents and, very importantly, protecting and restoring the environment. Major spill effects and significant cleanup operations, problems encountered, and lessons learned are presented so that future responses can be better and more efficiently dealt with in an inland oil spill disaster comparable to the “Agnes Oil Spill”.

scholarly journals Ergot development on low-pentosan diploid winter rye

2021 ◽  
pp. 73-78
Author(s):  
V. D. Kobylyansky ◽  
О. V. Solodukhina
Keyword(s):  
Infection Rate ◽  
Gene Pool ◽  
Harmful Effect ◽  
Water Soluble ◽  
Winter Rye ◽  
Claviceps Purpurea ◽  
Infection Level ◽  
Breeding For Resistance ◽  
Grain Productivity

Ergot (Claviceps purpurea (Fr) Tul.) is a widespread rye disease. A strong development of the disease can reduce up to 60% of grain productivity and its quality. In the rye gene pool, there was found no samples with complete resis[1]tance to Cl. purpurea. Since 2016, six new winter rye varieties with a low content of water-soluble pentosans in grain have been approved for cultivation in Russia. It has been noticed that low-pentosan varieties are less affected by ergot. The harmful effect of the disease largely depends on the sclerotia parameters. The purpose of the current study was to characterize the development of ergot on the high-pentosan winter rye variety ‘Era’ and its low-pentosan analogue ‘Novaya Era’. There was estimated the infestation of the varieties, the size and weight of the formed sclerotia. It was found that with the same infection level, the infestation of the variety ‘Era’ was 48.5%, and that of the variety ‘Novaya Era’ was 18.1%. On the heads of high-pentosan rye there were formed full-fledged sclerotia with 15.97–23.55 mm in length and 2.68–3.83 mm in width. On the heads of low-pentosan rye ‘Novaya Era’ the fungus formed underdeveloped sclerotia, the mass of which was 4-8 times less than on the variety ‘Era’. The small size and weight of the horns facilitated their removal from the crop during threshing, and reduced rye grain infection with ergot. The frequency of low-pentosan plants occurring in the varietal population affects the infection rate of rye. The frequency of low-pentosan plants in the variety ‘Era’ is 43%, and in the variety ‘Novaya Era’ is 95%. The development of rye varieties characterized by a low content of water-soluble pentosans in grain is connected with breeding for resistance to Cl. purpurea.

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