{"174381":{"#nid":"174381","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Gulf of Mexico Clean-Up Makes 2010 Spill 52-Times More Toxic","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EIf the 4.9 million barrels of oil that spilled into the Gulf of Mexico during the 2010 Deep Water Horizon spill was a ecological disaster, the two million gallons of dispersant used to clean it up apparently made it even worse \u2013 52-times more toxic. That\u2019s according to new research from the Georgia Institute of Technology and Universidad Autonoma de Aguascalientes (UAA), Mexico.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe study found that mixing the dispersant with oil increased toxicity of the mixture up to 52-fold over the oil alone. In toxicity tests in the lab, the mixture\u2019s effects increased mortality of rotifers, a microscopic grazing animal at the base of the Gulf\u2019s food web. The findings are \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/pii\/S0269749112004344\u0022\u003Epublished\u003C\/a\u003E online by the journal Environmental Pollution and will appear in the February 2013 print edition.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EUsing oil from the Deep Water Horizon spill and Corexit, the dispersant required by the Environmental Protection Agency for clean up, the researchers tested toxicity of oil, dispersant and mixtures on five strains of rotifers. Rotifers have long been used by ecotoxicologists to assess toxicity in marine waters because of their fast response time, ease of use in tests and sensitivity to toxicants. In addition to causing mortality in adult rotifers, as little as 2.6 percent of the oil-dispersant mixture inhibited rotifer egg hatching by 50 percent.\u0026nbsp; Inhibition of rotifer egg hatching from the sediments is important because these eggs hatch into rotifers each spring, reproduce in the water column, and provide food for baby fish, shrimp and crabs in estuaries.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cDispersants are preapproved to help clean up oil spills and are widely used during disasters,\u201d said UAA\u2019s Roberto-Rico Martinez, who led the study. \u201cBut we have a poor understanding of their toxicity. Our study indicates the increase in toxicity may have been greatly underestimated following the Macondo well explosion.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMartinez performed the research while he was a Fulbright Fellow at Georgia Tech in the lab of \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.biology.gatech.edu\u0022\u003ESchool of Biology\u003C\/a\u003E Professor Terry Snell. They hope that the study will encourage more scientists to investigate how oil and dispersants impact marine food webs and lead to improved management of future oil spills.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWhat remains to be determined is whether the benefits of dispersing the oil by using Corexit are outweighed by the substantial increase in toxicity of the mixture,\u201d said Snell, chair of the School of Biology. \u201cPerhaps we should allow the oil to naturally disperse. It might take longer, but it would have less toxic impact on marine ecosystems.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"Study shows mixing oil with dispersant increased toxicity to Gulf\u2019s ecosystems"}],"field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EIf the 4.9 million barrels of oil that spilled into the Gulf of Mexico during the 2010 Deep Water Horizon spill was a ecological disaster, the two million gallons of dispersant used to clean it up apparently made it even worse \u2013 52-times more toxic. That\u2019s according to new research from the Georgia Institute of Technology and Universidad Autonoma de Aguascalientes (UAA), Mexico.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Mixing oil with dispersant increased toxicity to Gulf\u2019s ecosystems"}],"uid":"27560","created_gmt":"2012-11-30 09:57:21","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:13:18","author":"Jason Maderer","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2012-11-30T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2012-11-30T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"174461":{"id":"174461","type":"image","title":"Female Rotifer","body":null,"created":"1449179012","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 21:43:32","changed":"1475894816","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:46:56","alt":"Female Rotifer","file":{"fid":"195821","name":"b_manjavacas_female_10x.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/b_manjavacas_female_10x_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/b_manjavacas_female_10x_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":261143,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/b_manjavacas_female_10x_0.jpg?itok=AAjj5Kls"}},"101151":{"id":"101151","type":"image","title":"Terry Snell","body":null,"created":"1449178159","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 21:29:19","changed":"1475894717","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:45:17"}},"media_ids":["174461","101151"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/pii\/S0269749112004344","title":"Online Article"},{"url":"http:\/\/www.cos.gatech.edu\/","title":"College of Sciences"},{"url":"http:\/\/www.biology.gatech.edu\/","title":"School of Biology"}],"groups":[{"id":"1183","name":"Home"}],"categories":[{"id":"144","name":"Energy"},{"id":"154","name":"Environment"},{"id":"146","name":"Life Sciences and Biology"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"277","name":"Biology"},{"id":"52171","name":"chemical dispersant"},{"id":"12159","name":"Deepwater Horizon"},{"id":"479","name":"Green Buzz"},{"id":"12160","name":"Gulf of Mexico"},{"id":"10123","name":"Oil spill"},{"id":"51891","name":"Terry Snell"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"},{"id":"39531","name":"Energy and Sustainable Infrastructure"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:maderer@gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJason Maderer\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EMedia Relations\u003Cbr \/\u003E404-385-2966\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["maderer@gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}