BIOL 381 Post-Midterm Oil Spills Notes PDF

**BIOL 381 Post-Midterm 2 Notes** **Topic 13: Oil Spills** **Fuel Transportation:** - Crude oil: liquid mixture of hundreds of different petrochemicals (hydrocarbons), later refined to make products such as gasoline, heating oil, etc. - Diluted bitumen (dilbit): bitumen (crude oil +...

**BIOL 381 Post-Midterm 2 Notes** **Topic 13: Oil Spills** **Fuel Transportation:** - Crude oil: liquid mixture of hundreds of different petrochemicals (hydrocarbons), later refined to make products such as gasoline, heating oil, etc. - Diluted bitumen (dilbit): bitumen (crude oil + sand) diluted with lighter petroleum (usually naphtha) to make it less viscous - Petroleum: broad category that includes both crude oil and petroleum products. The terms oil and petroleum are often used interchangeably Movement of petroleum by train is common **Moving Petroleum by Pipeline:** - Most of Canada's oil is transported by pipeline - Four major pipelines: - Trans mountain (Edmonton to BC) - Keystone (Hardisty AB to USA) - Express (Hardisty AB to USA) - Enbridge (Edmonton to USA) **Moving Petroleum by Sea:** - Most tanker traffic is to the USA - Rest is to overseas markets - Major ports: - Vancouver - Prince Rupert BC - Kitimat BC - Come by Chance NF&L - Port Hawksbury NS - Saint John NB **Oil Spills:** **Terrestrial** - Most common, usually involving a ruptured pipeline - Over 1000 incidents in Canada in the past decade alone - Impacts localized area **Marine** - Less frequent but more petroleum released - One single spill can release as much as an entire year of terrestrial spills - Damages disperse, oil transported across vast distances with ocean currents **Fate of Spilled Petroleum:** - **Weathering:** - Evaporation: evaporation of fumes and vapours reduces volume of spillage, can eliminate up to 100% of gasoline, 50% of crude oil and 10% of denser bunker fuel - **Spreading:** - The movement of an oil slick over water or land. Slow on land (soil highly absorbent), quicker on water (due to water currents and wind) - **Dissolution:** - Pollution of the water beneath an oil slick, lighter hydrocarbons become dissolved in water - **Residual Materials:** - Heavier hydrocarbons (lighter ones either evaporate or dissolve) form a gelatinous emulsion (water-in-oil) known as mousse, can wash up onto shorelines or sink - **Degradation:** - The slow decomposition of petroleum by either microbes (biodegradation) or photo-oxidation by UV radiation **Fate of Spilled Petroleum on Land:** - Localized impacts, unless a very large spill - Soils high in organic matter can absorb petroleum - Will tend to accumulate in low spots on the landscape **What Makes Petroleum Toxic:** - Contains mainly volatile organic compounds, such as benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene (BTEX) - VOCs are carcinogens, can cause neurological and reproductive damage, and are irritants **Acute Toxicity:** - Some hydrocarbons can destroy cellular membranes, killing tissues - The process of cleaning up oil spills can also kill organisms - Toxicity of oil varies on its source and level of processing **Risk of Suffocation for Aquatic Organisms:** - Surface waters are supersaturated with O2 due to atmospheric exchange - Oil slicks form a barrier between air and epilimnion, preventing atmospheric exchange - Dissolved O2 decreased epilimnetic organisms can suffocate **Impact to Soils:** - Biggest concern: petroleum will seep into groundwater - BTEX may kill soil microorganisms, arthropods, also higher organisms - Can potentially disrupt food webs **Increased Coastal Erosion:** - Oil can be especially toxic to marsh and coastal grasses - Kill the grasses, reduce the protection from wind and water, erosion increases **How Oil Spills are Cleaned Up:** - Mechanical recovery: physical containment, collection of spilled oil - In-situ burning; controlled burning of spilled oil to remove it - Chemical recovery: use of dispersants or gelling agents to either break the oil down into smaller droplets, or to congeal it together - Bioremediation: use of fertilizers and nutrients to increase microorganism growth, which in turn break down (biodegrade) the oil **Mechanical Recovery:** - Containment booms - Skimmers and sorbents **In-Situ Burning:** - If done properly, can remove large amounts of oil - But... it causes air pollution - Only works in low wind areas and best for lighter petroleum - Will produce residues that most often sink and persists **Chemical Recovery: Dispersants** - Mixture of surfactants - Used in choppy waters, when other methods are ineffective - Example: COREXIT - Used extensively to clean up Deepwater Horizon - May be more acutely toxic than the oil - Problem: COREXIT toxicity (environmental precautions state not to allow contact with soil, surface or groundwater - Toxic to not only aquatic organisms but humans as well - Gelling agents: solidifiers - Physically bonds with oil, forming a rubbery solid - Low in toxicity, low flammability - May be able to recycle solidified oil - Problem: expensive, need large volumes **Bioremediation:** - Use of microorganisms to break down and degrade petroleum - Can seed organisms into spills, or fertilize spills to increase their populations **Cleaning Terrestrial Spills:** - Easier to just remove the affected soil from the site - Bioremediation can be used - Use of electrical resistance heating (installing electrodes) **Oil Spill Examples:** **Recent oil spill:** October 2, 2021 Huntington Beach **Deepwater Horizon:** - What went wrong? - Piping failure and buildup of natural gas - Natural gas filled up the drill column and eventually exploded - Blowout preventer (BOP) malfunctioned and manual override was not enacted fast enough to prevent blowout - Problems on site: - Previous equipment malfunction - Faulty concrete - Lied on safety records - Ignored signs of problems - Ignored worker concerns - The cleanup: - 23.5 million litres of oil skimmed - 42 million litres burned - 62.5 million litres dispersed using COREXIT - British Petroleum (BP) required to pay \$18.7 million USD for cleanup and ecological restoration - Wildlife impact: - Laughing gull 32% decline - Royal tern 15% decline - Northern gannet 8% decline - Brown pelican 12% decline - 20% of all juvenile Kemp's Ridley sea turtles died - Habitats of 4 sea turtle species were degraded, and a fifth of migratory species were exposed as well - Bottlenose dolphin populations have decreased 50% in one Louisiana bay, due to direct mortality and reduced reproduction **The Gulf of Mexico is Healing, Slowly:** - Recovery by animals is slowed due to bioaccumulation and biomagnification of toxic COREXIT - Oil itself is also linked to birth defects and deaths of marine organisms - Most oil weathered by now, so fisheries closures have been lifted - We are still studying the impacts **Exxon-Valdez Oil Spill -- March 1989** **Learning from Exxon-Valdez:** - Weathering oil will persist, has been observed on Alaskan Coast 16+ years after spill - Chronic oil exposure will impact wildlife: - Chronic ingestion from grooming - Reduced reproduction, increased mortality in fish, mammals, birds - Bioaccumulation will occur - There will be indirect effects as well: - Food web disruptions from trophic cascades - Reduced biogenic habitat (created by impacted species) in turn can cause trophic cascades, further disrupting food webs - Loss of keystone species - Disruption of social species **Topic 14: Heavy Metals** **Heavy Metals:** - They\'re dense and heavy (\> 5g / cm\^3) - Heavy metals of concern: - Mercury (Hg) - Lead (Pb) - Problems: - Associated with particulate matter, easily transported in the atmosphere - Toxic, even in low concentrations - Can bioaccumulate **Mercury (Hg):** - Post-transition metal, atomic number 80 - Extremely volatile liquid - Often mined in form or cinnabar: - Mercury sulfide (HgS) - Deep red crystal, used as a pigment and in jewelry **Brief History of Mercury:** - Early Chinese thought cinnabar could prolong life - Mercury first mined in Spain over 2000 years ago; the miners would eventually get sick and die but thought acceptable because they were prisoners and slaves **Common Forms of Mercury:** - Elemental mercury (Hg) - Can be mixed with other metals (copper, gold, silver) to form alloys called amalgams - Inorganic mercury (mostly Hg2+) - Ionized mercury, ions with 1+ or 2+ charge - Organomercury (mostly MeHg+) - Highly toxic but not all forms bioaccumulate - Methylmercury **More on Organomercury:** - Compounds and ions of mercury, especially organomercury compounds, are more toxic than elemental mercury - Its readily absorbed through skin and is bioavailable to organisms (as opposed to elemental and inorganic mercury) **Methylation of Methylmercury:** SO4(2-) S(2-) S(2-) + Hg(2+) HgS HgS + ? CH3Hg **Toxicity of Mercury:** - Mercury is a neurotoxin and teratogen - Increases oxidation and oxidative damage in the body, especially the brain - Exposure to mercury in pregnancy can cause severe birth defects - Methylmercury is readily absorbed by the digestive tract of humans, as opposed to other forms of mercury - From there it can be easily transported across the blood-brain barrier, and across the placenta - Why? - Because it binds with the amino acid L-cysteine. The body then mistakes this newly formed methylmercury-L-cysteine complex for another necessary amino acid, L-methionine **Minamata Bay:** - Methylmercury in wastewater from Chisso Corporation factory - Wastewater was dumped directly into Minamata Bay - Caused Minamata Disease in many children due to bioaccumulation within fish and the consumption of said fish by humans **What can we do?** - Stop using coal/fossil fuels as energy - Stop using and learn to properly dispose of products with mercury **All About Lead (Pb):** - Post-transition metal, atomic number 82 - Usually mined in the form of lead sulfide (PbS) - Found near zinc ore deposits - Often associated with the occurrence of silver **Brief History of Lead:** - Used as makeup for millennia - Also used to make water pipes, dating back to the Roma Empire - An additive to paint from the 4^th^ century BCE up until 1978 sped up drying and was more durable - Also an additive to gasoline (antiknock) from the 1920s till today banned in Canada in 1993 **Toxicity of Lead:** - Like mercury, lead is a neurotoxin and can cause blood disorders - Inhaled or ingested - Induces oxidative stress that can damage DNA and enzyme function - Lead bioaccumulates in several tissues: - Blood - Soft tissues - Bone - Teeth - Brain is the most sensitive to lead: - Lead exposure is correlated with intellectual disabilities and reduced brain size **Canadian Atmospheric Lead Emissions in 1970:** - 65% automobiles - 19% non-ferrous mining, smelting and refining - 11% iron and steel industries **Canadian Atmospheric Lead Emissions in 2009:** - 70% base smelting and refining - 17% aviation - 3% mining - 7% other **Lead bioaccumulates but cannot biomagnify very well** **How to Reduce Lead Exposure and Pollution?** - Don't use products containing lead (if you do, dispose of them properly) - Remove (or advocate for the removal of lead pipes and paint) - Advocate for environmental remediation at sites with lead contamination **Lead and the Flint (Michigan) Water Crisis:** **April 2014:** City of Fint switched drinking water source from the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department to the Flint River to save money **August-September 2014:** Boil advisor issued for coliform -- city adds extra chlorine to water **October 2014:** Michigan Department of Environmental Quality issues a statement saying declines in water quality were due to old pipes and cold weather. General Motors stops using city water because it was corroding automotive parts **February 2015:** government officials say there is nothing to worry about; meantime, lead concentrations of 104 micrograms/L are measured in the water (limit is 15 micrograms/L) EPA makes a statement: testing methods used by State of Michigan are underestimating lead concentrations **March 2015:** lead levels up to 395 micrograms/L are detected **July 2015:** residents finally instructed to get lead blood testing **September 2015:** scientists alert to the corrosiveness of water from Flint River may leach lead out of city pipes and additives are used to control corrosion from chlorine. Doctors encourage people to stop using water as it may impact health of children **October 2015:** city tells citizens to stop using city water and finally reconnects to Detroit's water **December 2015:** city uses additional corrosion controls and declares state of emergency **January 2016:** state of emergency declared for county, also Federal state of emergency declared **February 2017:** case of legionnaire's disease linked to poor water quality in Flint **Today:** lead levels below federal guidelines, water lines are slowly being replaced **Lead Pipes:** - Orthophosphate decreases corrosion - Chlorine increased corrosion - More lead, more iron (rusty water) very bad **Who's to Blame?** - Many officials resigned and many still face criminal charges - Several state officials resigned, mainly in the MDEQ - Task force created by governor officially blamed on the MDEQ - EPA criticized for not making a more immediate action **Topic 15: Waste Management** **We make Too Much Waste:** - Municipal waste: waste produced by consumers, public facilities, and small businesses - Municipal wastewater: water that has been used by people in some way, including sewage, water from showers, sinks, washing machines etc. **What we Should Do:** - Source reduction: - Make industrial practices more efficient - Minimize packaging in product design - Purchase "green" products - Compost materials at home in backyard - Reuse items when possible - Waste reduction: - Recover items for recycling - Recover material for composting - Waste disposal: - Incinerate waste - Dispose of waste in landfill **Landfills:** - Bottom liner system: - Waste stored on top of a soil protection layer as well as a compacted soil liner - Cap system: - Waste is stored underground underneath an infiltration soil layer, vegetative support soil layer, and a topsoil **Main Problem with Landfills:** Stuck with massive piles of trash - Examples: - NIMBY movement: wealthy communities such as New York would often export their garbage to landfills in less-wealthy areas - Basel Convention (1992): treaty on control of transboundary movements of hazardous wastes and their disposal - Reduction of hazardous waste generation and sound management of hazardous wastes - Restriction of transboundary movements of hazardous wastes - Regulatory system for cases where transboundary movements are permissible **Waste Disposal: E-waste** Electronic waste such as phones, computers and various other electronic devices **Waste Disposal: Incinerators** The combustion of waste at very high temps, reducing volume by as much as 90% and weight by as much as 75% - Problem: - Produces air pollution and secondary pollutants - SO2 can be scrubbed out of emissions, along with some PM to reduce pollution **Waste Disposal in Edmonton:** - Edmonton waste management centre - Manages four streams of waste: - Recycling - Compost - Biofuel production - Landfill - Recycle: - Currently recycle or compost 50% of all waste, goal of 90% of all waste by 2018 - Processes 50,000 tonnes/year of metals, glass, paper - Material is collected from: - Blue bag program - Blue bin program - Recycling depots - Also manage e-waste recycling facility - Compost: - Divert approx. 50% of residential waste from landfill to either composting or recycling facilities - Process 160,000 tonnes/year - Sold as "Second Nature" compost and topsoil around the city - Compost: anaerobic digestion: - New facility: Anaerobic Digestion Facility - Goal: divert 90% of waste from landfill - Collect biogenic natural gas emissions: - Use as a fuel source - Reduce GHG emissions - Biofuel production: - Feedback preparation: sorting, shredding, drying, and feeding - Gasification: conversion of carbon-rich residues into synthetic gas - Cleaning and conditioning process: primary syngas purification - Catalytic synthesis and product purification: conversion of chemical-grade syngas into final renewable products - Landfill: - Clover Bar Landfill - Landfill gas recovery: - Collects CH4, CO2 - Used to power generators **We Need to Reduce our Waste:** - Not all waste facilities are as sustainable as Edmonton's - Too much waste is outsourced - Too much waste is disposed improperly **Example: Plastic** - 8 million tonnes of plastic enters the ocean each year - Only 14% of all plastic is recycled - Estimate: plastics will outweigh fish in the oceans by 2050 **Fight Against Planned Obsolescence:** - Planned obsolescence: designing a product with an artificially limited useful life, to force consumers to purchase mew products in shorter intervals - Usually achieved by making products difficult to repair (tech), excessively trendy (clothing), or programming them so they automatically shut off at a prescribed point (ink cartridges) **Municipal Wastewater Treatment: Pretreatment** - Aerated grit tank: - Remove large, heavy materials - Bar screens: - Remove large light material (plastics, wood) **Primary Treatment:** - Setting tanks - Allows heavier solids (sludge) to settle at the bottom of the tank - Can remove up to 60% of suspended solids - Fate of sludge: - Fermented - Digested (biogas) - Used (sometimes) as fertilizer **Secondary Treatment:** - Aeration: - Encourages growth of microbes which degrade organic pollutants - Removes biological nutrients, such as phosphorus and nitrogen - Sometimes called "bioreactors" **Tertiary Treatment:** - Clarification: - Second set of settling tanks, allows microbes to flock - UV disinfection: - Treat effluent with UV light to kill any remaining microbes - Membrane filtration: - Similar effects as UV disinfection - Use micropore filters to remove microbes **Quaternary Treatment:** - Removal of pharmaceutical pollutants, and other persistent compounds - Problems: - We don't know how to do it efficiently yet - Regardless, it will be expensive - Testing methods involved activated carbon and ozone **What Can Go Wrong: Untreated Wastewater** - Equipment malfunction - Overburdened system - Too expensive to do properly - Non-compliance or lack of regulations **Climate Change and Overburdened Wastewater Treatment Plants:** - Less predictable climate = more storms - More storms = more stormwater - More stormwater = more wastewater **What Can Go Wrong: Improperly Treated Wastewater** - Pathogens: - In effluent - In solid waste used as fertilizer - Excess nutrients: - Phosphorus: eutrophication - Nitrogen: disrupt oxygen transport in humans **What Can Go Wrong: Disruptions to Biological Treatment** - Can occur when hazardous waste and toxins get into wastewater - Can disrupt or kill the microbes involved in secondary treatment - Municipal systems not designed to treat this waste **What Can Go Wrong: Fatbergs** - Conglomerates of products that cant degrade in sewage systems such as fats, oils, condoms, menstrual products, etc. **Municipal Wastewater Reduction:** - Treating wastewater takes energy, resources, and time - Also, some sludge is disposed in landfills - Some systems produce energy (biogas) but are rarely energy neutral - Globally, wastewater treatment isn't always as stringent as it is in Canada **Topic 16: Pharmaceuticals as Pollutants** **Detecting Pharmaceutical Pollution:** - Liquid chromatography/mass spectroscopy/mass spectroscopy **Commonly Detected Pharmaceuticals:** - Estradiol/ethinyl-estradiol (synthetic estrogen) - SSRIs (antidepressants/antianxiety) - Antibiotics - Atenolol (beta-blocker for blood pressure) **Endocrine Disruptors:** Toxicants that interfere with the endocrine system, usually either synthetic hormones, or hormone-mimics. - These compounds exert their effects by: - Mimicking or antagonizing the effects of hormones - Altering the pattern of synthesis and the metabolism of hormones - Modifying hormone receptor levels - Endocrine mimics: - PCBs - Bisphenol-A - Bisphenol-S - Phthalates - DDT - Atrazine - Synthetic hormones: - Estradiol - Ethinylestradiol - Potential endocrine mimics: - Oxybenzone - Tributyltin In normal hormone binding, hormones simply attach to receptors located on the cell membrane and cause a cellular response, however, hormone mimics can also derive the same cellular response **Endocrine Disruptors:** Although they may not pose direct acute or chronic threats to humans or other living organisms, endocrine disruptors indirectly interact with the endocrine systems that control the body's function resulting in excessive amounts OR suppression of hormones. - This phenomenon is called endocrine disruption, which may involve the appearance of: - Infertility - Sexual underdevelopment - Altered or reduced sexual behaviour - Attention deficit or hyperactivity - Altered thyroid or adrenal cortical function - Increased incidents of certain cancers - Birth defects **Antibiotics:** - Usually removed by chlorination - Problem: all treated water isn't chlorinated - Chloramine is replacing chlorine use, because it creates fewer byproducts (e.g. corrosion of pipes) **SSRIs and Wildlife:** - Can reduce predator-avoidance behaviour - Example: featherhead minnows and sertraline (Zoloft) - Minnows also do not try to swim faster - Think about it: could this change in behaviour influence lake food webs? And how? **Synthetic Estrogen and Wildlife:** - Found in birth control pills, usually in the form of ethinyl estradiol (EE) - EE is a component of nearly every hormonal contraceptive in the North American market (except for progestin-only methods, such as the "morning after pill") **Ethinyl Estradiol:** - Has been measured downstream from wastewater treatment discharges - More persistent that other forms of estrogen - Acutely toxic to aquatic organisms at the scale of mg/L - Can induce vitellogenin (egg yolk protein) production in male fish at the scale of ng/L **Collapse of a Fish Population After Exposure to a Synthetic Estrogen;** - Exposed a lake in the Experimental Lakes Area to EE for 7 years and tracked changes to fathead minnow populations **Experimental Estrogen Addition:** - Lake 260 at the ELA: estrogen addition, whole-ecosystem experiment **Study Design:** - Added 3 times a week for 5 months - 100-450 mg added/day 94.5% loss/day) - Season means of 6.1, 5.0, and 4.8 ng/L - Added between 38 and 44 g per year **Endocrine Disruptors and Wildlife: Atrazine** - Induces complete feminization and chemical castration in male African clawed frogs **How Antibiotic Resistance Spreads: Farm Waste** - Farm animals get antibiotics to develop resistant bacteria in their gut. - Fertilizer or water containing animal feces and drug-resistant bacteria is used on food crops - Drug-resistant bacteria in the animal feces can remain on the crops and be eaten. These bacteria can remain in the human gut. - Drug-resistant bacteria can also remain on meat from animals if not handled correctly or cooked properly. **Impacts to Humans: Conclusions** - For now, harmful effects to humans from pharmaceutical pollution is not observed (its considered not yet likely) - Except from antibiotics: concerns for antibiotic resistance are high - Just because humans aren't impacted (yet) doesn't mean we should ignore this problem **Wastewater treatment and pharmaceuticals:** - Secondary treatment can remove 20-90% of pharmaceuticals from waste - Additional 'quaternary' treatment that can remove up to 99% of pharmaceuticals: - Ozonation - Advanced oxidation - Activated carbon - Reverse osmosis - Nanofiltration **Problems: cost of quaternary treatment:** - Many municipalities in Canada can barely afford tertiary treatment, nonetheless quaternary treatment - Even so, quaternary treatment may not remove it all **Rethink/reduce some pharmaceutical usage:** - Make over the counter drugs one of many options - Start low, work up - If possible (talk to your doctor) consider non-hormonal or low hormone birth control **Reduce non-therapeutic usage in farm animals:** - Reduce the use of antibiotics to promote growth in animal foods: - Reduces pharmaceutical waste - Reduces risk of evolution of antibiotic resistance **Dispose of excess drugs properly:** - Most pharmacies in Edmonton participate in the ENVIRs medication take-back program **Topic 17: Plastic Pollution** **Plastics:** polymers, long-chain molecules made of repeating links, or monomers. The chains are strong, light, and durable, which makes them so useful and problematic when disposed of improperly. The polymer is a PET, a type of polyester used in the production of bottles and clothes **Plastic cycle:** - Like any other biogeochemical cycle - To help in identifying relationships between plastic manufacturing and pollution to serious environmental problems - For the ramifications on policy development and management of the issue - As a foundation for the development of thoughts, ideas, and hopefully, sustainable solutions to address this global problem **Nanoparticles and microparticles:** - Nanoparticles - A particle \