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Research & Development Needs For Making Decisions Regarding Dispersing Oil Coastal Response Research Center






Research & Development Needs For
Making Decisions Regarding Dispersing Oil

Coastal Response Research Center
Durham, New Hampshire
September 20-21, 2005


Report Issued: June, 2006




Forward


Use of dispersants in the U.S has been controversial for decades. The National
Academy of Science (NAS) published its first review of the topic on 1989. Subsequently,
the Oil Petroleum Act of 1990 (OPA 90) noted the need for national and regional
guidelines to address their use during spills. As a result, some regional response teams
have pre-approved dispersant use in waters beyond the three mile limit and exceeding
30 feet in depth. More recently, the U.S. Coast Guard has considered changes to
regulations regarding dispersant application, but these may not be released until 2007
after many delays. The NAS agreed to revisit the dispersants question, examining the
existing information and ongoing research on the efficacy and effects of dispersants as an
oil spill response measure in the U.S. The resulting NAS report was released in May
2005. Two of the many findings/recommendations of the report were the lack of
adequately peer-reviewed research on dispersants and the need for an integrated plan to
guide future research endeavors and funding.


The Coastal Response Research Center, a partnership between the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Office of Response and Restoration
(ORR) and the University of New Hampshire (UNH), develops new approaches to spill
response and restoration through research and synthesis of information. The Centers
mission requires it to serve as a hub for research, development, and technology transfer to
the oil spill community. During the summer of 2005, the Center helped form the
Dispersants Working Group (DWG), consisting of fourteen entities that fund research.
The DWG membership agreed to participate in formulating an integrated research plan;
the first step of this plan was to convene a research needs workshop on the efficacy and
effects of dispersants. The Center hosted this workshop in September 2005 in Durham,
NH. Dr. Carol-Ann Manen, the NOAA Co-Director of the Center who retired in March
2006, Kimberly Newman, and Kathy Mandsager were all actively involved in the
planning and convening of this workshop. This report, written for the Center by Drs.
Jacqueline Michel (Research Planning, Inc.) and Amy Merten (NOAA ORR
Management) and approved by the DWG, summarizes the funding of approximately 35
individuals who attended the workshop. It outlines the broad research topics that will be
the basis for RFPs on dispersants for the next three to five years.


I hope you enjoy reading the report and exploring the topics. If you have any
comments, please contact the Center. The Center looks forward to many more similar
endeavors during the coming years where it can be of service to the oil spill community
and the nation.

Sincerely,





Nancy E. Kinner, Ph.D.
UNH
Co-Director
Professor of Civil/Environmental Engineering ii


Acknowledgements

The Coastal Response Research Center gratefully acknowledges the authors of this report:
Jacqueline Michel of Research Planning, Inc. and Amy Merten of the NOAA Office of Response
and Restoration. The Center acknowledges the time and effort provided by the participants in the
workshop, whose contributions have been synthesized into this report. In addition, the Center
acknowledges the thoughtful input and comments received by the members of the Dispersant
Working Group on the concept of the workshop and the draft report.

The Coastal Response Research Center is funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, Office of Response and Restoration.

Citation:

Coastal Response Research Center. 2006. Research and Development Needs for Making
Decisions Regarding Dispersing Oil. University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, 22 pp +
appendices. iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE

Forward...................................................................................................................................... i

Acknowledgements................................................................................................................... ii

I. Introduction..........................................................................................................................1

II. Workshop Organization and Structure.................................................................................3

III. Workshop Results ................................................................................................................4

IV. Synthesis of Workshop Results into Suggested Research Topics .....................................16

V. Workshop Summary ..........................................................................................................20
A.
Dispersant
Efficacy
Summary .....................................................................................20

B. Dispersant Fate and Effects Summary.........................................................................21

VI. References Cited ................................................................................................................22


Appendix A: List of Dispersant Working Group Membership as of September 2005

Appendix B: List of Workshop Participants


iv
LIST OF TABLES
TABLE










PAGE

1
Efficacy Topic 1: Chemical Parameters that influence overall effectiveness...................5
2
Efficacy Topic 2: Operational and Hydrodynamic Parameters .......................................7
3
Efficacy Topic 3: Modeling Integration of Chemical, Operational..................................9
4
Efficacy Topic 1: Fate of Oil and Dispersed Oil in the Water Column..........................10
5
Efficacy Topic 2: Realistic Exposure Regimes/Toxicity Testing...................................12
6
Efficacy Topic 3: Integration to Make Short and Long Term Prediction of Effects ......14 1
I. Introduction


Use of chemical dispersants in U.S. waters as a major response tool has been a controversial
issue for decades. This is partly due to the legacy of first generation dispersants which
consisted of misapplications of degreasers and other solvents with high aquatic toxicities (NRC,
1989; 2005). The newer formulations of dispersants are less toxic to marine organisms, and often
are orders of magnitude less toxic than the toxic fractions in the oil itself. The remaining factors
perpetuating the controversy include questions regarding the effectiveness (efficiency) of
dispersant use relative to other cleanup methods, and the long-term fate and effects of dispersed
oil, especially in near-shore environments (NRC, 2005).

Dispersants are chemical compounds (surfactants) with lipophilic and hydrophilic groups
designed to reduce the oil-water interfacial tension and enhance physical dispersion into the
water column by breaking an oil slick into small, dispersant-coated oil droplets (NRC 1989,
2005). The primary function of a dispersant is to remove the oil from the surface of the water to
prevent it from stranding on a shoreline and reduce the risk of oiling birds and mammals using
the surface layer. Dispersants do not reduce the mass of oil in the environment; they simply
move it to a different environmental compartment, and in doing so, shift the risk of impacts to
water column and offshore benthic organisms. Thus, in order to make sound decisions on
whether to use dispersants, one must use a risk-based paradigm to evaluate tradeoffs and decide
whether the overall environmental benefits of dispersant use outweigh the environmental costs
from utilizing this response option.

Dispersants have been and remain a high research priority in the U.S. In 1989, the first National
Research Council (NRC) report, Using Oil Spill Dispersants on the Sea, was published in
response to significant research conducted, nationally and abroad. The 1989 study was
commissioned to: evaluate whether dispersants were effective, identify possible impacts of
dispersants and dispersed oil on marine and coastal environments, and provide guidance on the
appropriate locations to consider dispersant use. This report and the establishment of Interagency
Coordination Committee on Research and Technology (Title VII) of the Oil Pollution Act of
1990 (OPA) fueled further research to meet the recommendations of the report and establish
zones in which dispersant use could be considered. Much of this worked focused on open water,
and the establishment of dispersant pre-approval zones in the U.S. for marine waters greater than
10 m deep and offshore greater than 3 miles, where the risk of using dispersants was easier to
accept due to large dilution effects.

However, most of the spills that occurred in U.S. waters from 1990 1999 were within 3 miles
of shore and less than 10,0