Petroleum hydrocarbons Alaska

At a salvage yard in Anchorage, Alaska, the cost of treating 250 kg of lead- and polychlorinated biphenyl-contaminated soil was 22,000. At a underground storage tank site at the Boston Central Arterial, 10 kg of soil contaminated with total petroleum hydrocarbon was treated at a cost of 45 per ton (D10328W, pp. 8-16). 

Long-term exposure of microbial populations to certain toxicants often is necessary for adaptation of enzymatic systems capable of degrading those toxicants. This was the case with the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska in 1989. Natural microbial populations in Prince William Sound, Alaska, had developed enzyme systems that oxidize petroleum hydrocarbons because of long-term exposure to natural oil seeps and to hydrocarbons that leached from the pine forests in the area. Growth of these natural microbial populations was nutrient limited during the summer. Thus the application of nutrient formulations to the rocky beaches of Prince William Sound stimulated microbial growth and helped to degrade the spilled oil. 

Page, D.S., Boehm, P.D., Douglas, G.S., Bence, E.A., Burns, W.A., Mankiewicz, P.J., 1996. The natural petroleum hydrocarbon background in subtidal sediments of Prince William Sound, Alaska, USA. Environ. Toxicol. Chem. 15, 1266-1281. 

Frost KJ, Manen C-A, Wade TL (1994) Petroleum hydrocarbons in tissues of harbor seals from Prince William Sound and the Gulf of Alaska. In Loughlin TR (ed) Marine Mammals and the Exxon Valdez. Academic Press, San Diego, pp 331-350. 

Petroleum hydrocarbons have a highly variable influence on aquatic plants. At low concentrations, these substances often have a stimulatory effect on growth of many species, whereas at higher concentrations, the effect may be greatly reduced. Federle etal (1979) reported that treatment of phytoplankton with Prudhoe Bay (Alaska) crude oil at concentrations of 30-200 jLLg L resulted in a 90-100% decrease in primary production within 5 days. Thereafter, there was a shift in the species composition of the plankton, followed by a 50% recovery in the primary production rate. Such changes in species composition have also been noted under natural conditions and probably have some effect on the rest of the food chain, though this is a difficult point to confirm outside the laboratory. 

In a study of large-scale ballast treatment operations in Port Valdez, Alaska (Summer 1978), it was found that the effluent from the gravity separator and the final effluent contained volatile organic matter composed primarily of aromatic hydrocarbons (benzene, toluene, and xylenes), dissolved organic materials of the petroleum nonhydrocarbon... 

Petroleum, or crude oil, is a mixture of hydrocarbons plus smaller quantities of other organic compounds containing nitrogen, oxygen, or sulfur. The tremendous demand for petroleum to meet the world s energy needs has led to the tapping of oil wells in such forbidding places as the North Sea and northern Alaska. 

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