Abstract
The ultimate fate of most oil released into the biosphere is biodegradation. Yet oil lacks some of the essential nutrients for microbial life, and its biodegradation can be limited by the availability of such nutrients from the local environment. Bioremediation of oil on shorelines aims to at least partially alleviate this limitation by the judicious application of fertilizers. Bioremediation played a central role in the response to the Exxon Valdez spill in Prince William Sound, AK, being applied to more than 120 km of shoreline. This short paper describes the program designed by Exxon, the USEPA, and the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation to assess the environmental safety and efficacy of bioremediation as it was being carried out in the Sound. It provides a prototype if monitoring shoreline bioremediation needs to be done in the future.
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Prince, R.C., Clark, J.R., Lindstrom, J.E. (2015). Field Studies Demonstrating the Efficacy of Bioremediation in Marine Environments. In: McGenity, T., Timmis, K., Nogales, B. (eds) Hydrocarbon and Lipid Microbiology Protocols. Springer Protocols Handbooks. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/8623_2015_172
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/8623_2015_172
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