Use of bioremedial technologies has gained popularity in recent decades for application at oil spill sites. While much research has been done on specific case studies along marine shores, such as with the spill of the Exxon Valdez, there still remain questions as to the advantage of active biological treatment vs. natural attenuation in freshwater environments. To examine this question, a comparative study of allochthonous and autochthonous microbial communities ability to degrade weathered oil residuals was implemented at the CITGO Petroleum Refinery in Lake Charles, Louisiana following a spill of approximately 40,000 barrels of slop oil on June 19th, 2006 into a freshwater drainage canal and wetland area.
Three treatments were tested including bioaugmentation, or the addition of a cultured allochthonous microbial community, biostimulation, utilizing the addition of nutrient amendments to aid the growth of autochthonous microbial populations, and finally an experimental control or a natural attenuation treatment. After completion of treatment applications for 74 days, sampling and analysis at three sampling intervals (0, 43, and 74 days), and statistical analysis performed in two manners (including day 0 data as sampling points, and correcting for initial variability with day 0 data) research has shown that there was no statistical difference between the effects of either active treatment type and that of the experimental control.
Biological remedial activity of a freshwater spill site in a warm climate was observed to be more influenced by the natural environment and climate conditions than by that of anthropogenic inputs such as nutrient supplement or selective allochthonous bacterial communities. Furthermore, autochthonous microbial communities exhibited similar bacterial activity as well as the ability to successfully reduce petroleum hydrocarbon concentrations within the freshwater canal to below that of Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality RECAP screening levels for continued industrial use based on oil Total Petroleum Hydrocarbon fraction analysis (LDEQ, 2003).
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LSU/oai:etd.lsu.edu:etd-06072007-152128 |
| Date | 08 June 2007 |
| Creators | Schmidt, Kyle Alan |
| Contributors | Ralph J. Portier, Ed Overton, Piers Chapman |
| Publisher | LSU |
| Source Sets | Louisiana State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-06072007-152128/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached herein a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to LSU or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below and in appropriate University policies, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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