The improvement of oil bioremediation on the shoreline

The transportation of oil and fuel always poses a risk for the environment. Although means of combating marine oil spills have been studied for decades, once an oil spill reaches the shoreline there are very few effective methods available. As mechanical cleaning is laborious and hence expensive, other methods such as steam and emulsifying chemicals (e.g. surfactants) have been studied for shoreline treatment. Many of these methods have later been shown to have a detrimental and toxic effect on sensitive coastal wildlife. It is now-well known that sea water contains large numbers of oil-degrading microorganisms and, by improving the biodegradation conditions of these natural microbes, bioremediation can be speeded up. During 1996 a research project on the improvement of oil bioremediation on the shoreline was started with funds provided by the European Commission and through local sources of from each country involved. The participating institutes in the EC project are VTT (Technical Research Centre of Finland), Swedish Environmental Research Institute, and Rogaland Research from Norway. Furthermore, a Finnish-Russian collaboration project is part of the overall consortium and is mainly concerned with field trials conducted in Murmansk by the Murmansk Marine Biological Institute in Russia. This paper presents the basic test phases of the research programme. After the discussion on the laboratory tests, a description of the field tests has been carried out. The aim of the programme was to develop reliable testing methods for the evaluation of oil bioremediation. Thus different approach to study the oil bioremediation was followed.