Old wrecks & oil Slicks.

[ShinyD]

Interesting article Richard - thanks for posting it.

One point about the naturally leaking oil is that it's in its natural state (ie. unrefined). The majority of the wrecks lying around the seabed will contain refined hydrocarbons which will include additives of various descriptions.

Is there any evidence that leaking refined hydrocarbon products are cleaned up naturally by microbes in the same way natural leakages are?

[Richard Mason]

Originally Posted by Southern_Dave

Interesting article Richard - thanks for posting it.

One point about the naturally leaking oil is that it's in its natural state (ie. unrefined). The majority of the wrecks lying around the seabed will contain refined hydrocarbons which will include additives of various descriptions.

Is there any evidence that leaking refined hydrocarbon products are cleaned up naturally by microbes in the same way natural leakages are?

I'd imagine so. I've had some experience with rehabilitating soils contaminated by leaking underground fuel storage tanks, by a process known as land farming. Quite simply, you find an area of suitable land (we used an old tip site), lay down thick plastic sheeting and spread the soil across it in windrows 450-600mm high. The rainwater runoff is collected and run through an old septic tank before discharge onto open ground, where it soaks away. The septic basically floats out and retains any hydrocarbon contaminants and can be pumped out and properly disposed of every 12 months or so.

Then spray the whole lot with a nitrate based fertiliser every few months, which keeps the bacteria going (they are dentrifying bacteria, same as the ones that eat grass clippings, sawdust etc) and after about 18 months, the residues are gone. This stuff isn't recognisable fuel as such, (as the lighter fractions basically vapourise from the soils soon after they leak out), it's the much heavier stuff in the blend, almost tarry in appearance, it smells very strong, almost like bitumen - quite offensive actually.

The soil is turned a couple of times in the land farming process, so that the hydrocarbon contaminants are removed by a combination of both volatilisation to the atmosphere and being chewed up by soil bacteria.

It worked quite well in the area we tried it, up on the East Coast, with low rainfall and strong drying winds for much of the year, annual evaporation about 1000mm.

This simply mimicked and adopted natural processes, so I would imagine the same thing would happen, in some form, out at sea.

[ShinyD]

Thanks for the info Richard

[Kalahari Diver]

Richard, have you heard anything about using worms to remove noxious compounds and heavy metals? I am sure I read an article on this a few months ago and now I can't find it. Any help would be appreciated.

David.

[MCFastybloke]

bit of a hijack but in a similar vein i did read that the bulk of the russian nuclear fleet is gently decaying up there in the north of russia contains many pollutants and worst of all loads of plutonium enough to kill everything in all the oceans and the ruskis have no idea /funds /tecnology to safely dispose of this

[Last Man Standing]

Thats a good point about the former Soviet nuclear fleet. There's a massive navy base on the outskirts of St.Petersburg. I sailed past it a few times about 8-10 years ago and there were rows and rows of out of commission subs and other warships lined up there rusting. There must be loads of these things sitting in similar bases. The old Soviet vessels weren't exactly known as being particulary well shielded etc so its probably a lot more than just the reactor that's a bit 'hot'.

[CotoChris]

Originally Posted by MCFastybloke

bit of a hijack but in a similar vein i did read that the bulk of the russian nuclear fleet is gently decaying up there in the north of russia contains many pollutants and worst of all loads of plutonium enough to kill everything in all the oceans and the ruskis have no idea /funds /tecnology to safely dispose of this

Isn't the EU and the Americans helping out with the cleaning? I know the Finns are very concerned. The pollution in ex USSR is horrific, very sad.