# Is it true that natural oil eating organisms will gobble up most of the Gulf oil spill? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 27, 2010, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-natural-oil-eating-organisms-will-gobble-up-most-of-the-gulf-oil-spill/540892 "2010-05-27T00:36:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2010, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-natural-oil-eating-organisms-will-gobble-up-most-of-the-gulf-oil-spill/540892/1 "2010-05-27T00:36:11Z")
Re the current Gulf oil spill and it’s long term impact, I was talking with someone today who said that based on the data we collected from the history of the Alaskan Exxon Valdez spill, that oil eating organisms in the environment will gobble up the majority of the oil within a few years at most, and all the strenuous exertions we are undertaking to disperse and collect the oil are a huge waste of time and effort relative to how quickly natural mechanisms will clear the oil. Is this true? ---
**Author:** ![Todderbob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e47774/32.png) [@Todderbob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Todderbob)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2010, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-natural-oil-eating-organisms-will-gobble-up-most-of-the-gulf-oil-spill/540892/2 "2010-05-27T00:40:49Z")
No. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2010, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-natural-oil-eating-organisms-will-gobble-up-most-of-the-gulf-oil-spill/540892/3 "2010-05-27T00:42:29Z")
^^ ---
**Author:** ![capybara](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/capybara/32/202_2.png) [@capybara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/capybara)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2010, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-natural-oil-eating-organisms-will-gobble-up-most-of-the-gulf-oil-spill/540892/4 "2010-05-27T00:50:44Z")
Of course it’s bullshit, but anyone want to go into any detail/citations for the sake of us who are not organic chemists/ biologists so that we can help fight the good fight against misinformation and come in here for information or to learn or something? ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2010, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-natural-oil-eating-organisms-will-gobble-up-most-of-the-gulf-oil-spill/540892/5 "2010-05-27T01:09:24Z")
> [@astro](#): > > … all the strenuous exertions we are undertaking to disperse and collect the oil are a huge waste of time and effort relative to how quickly natural mechanisms will clear the oil. I take you haven’t [read up on the continuing environmental damage](http://www.afsc.noaa.gov/Quarterly/jas2001/feature_jas01.htm)of the Exxon Valdez, more than 20 years on? ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2010, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-natural-oil-eating-organisms-will-gobble-up-most-of-the-gulf-oil-spill/540892/6 "2010-05-27T01:11:11Z")
The presence of natural tar and asphalt pits shows that there are very few natural organisms capable of living in or digesting crude oil. However, even if such natural organisms existed, “in a few years” is way the hell too long to just sit it out and do nothing. It’s not like plants and animals can go into suspended animation until we give them the all-clear. They’ll die in a matter of days if they get covered in oil. Even if you don’t care much for wildlife, that will put fishermen and tourism-industry-employees out of work and could cripple the economies of whole cities or even states. ---
**Author:** ![joebuck20](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/74df32/32.png) [@joebuck20](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joebuck20)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2010, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-natural-oil-eating-organisms-will-gobble-up-most-of-the-gulf-oil-spill/540892/7 "2010-05-27T01:16:19Z")
Listening to Limbaugh, are we? ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2010, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-natural-oil-eating-organisms-will-gobble-up-most-of-the-gulf-oil-spill/540892/8 "2010-05-27T01:19:11Z")
More than 20 years ago an oil spill occurred here in Panama from a leaking storage tank and some of the oil got into the nearby mangrove forest. Still today oil continues to seep out of the sediment where it lodged after the spill. Once that oil gets into the coastal wetlands, it will hang around for a very long time. [Story here](http://www.stri.org/english/about_stri/headline_news/news/article.php?id=1143) > [@](#): > > “Nearly 25 years after a storage tank ruptured, spilling oil into the mangrove swamps and coral reefs of Bahia Las Minas in Panama, oil slicks can still be found on the water”, writes David Biello of Scientific American, in a recent article (May 14) commenting on the Bay of Mexico Oil Spill. > > In an interview published earlier last week, Jeremy B.C. Jackson, former senior staff scientist at STRI, and currently professor of oceanography at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Joya, California, forecasted that “this [the current oil spill] is a problem that won´t go away for a decade.” In November 1993, Jackson, with Brian D. Keller (1948-2010) presented three volumes resulting from the Long-term Assessment of the Oil Spill at Bahía Las Minas, Panama, published by the U.S. Department of the Interior, Minerals Management Service, Gulf of Mexico OCS Region, New Orleans. Keller and Jackson headed the investigations conducted by 21 researchers and 36 research assistants. > > “What we learned was never, ever let oil get into a mangrove coast. You´ll never get it out. It´s like a sponge you rub on a greasy bacon pan. You need very hot water and a lot of soap, and you still might just give up and throw away the sponge” added Jackson in the interview conducted by Renee Schoof of McClatchy Newspapers. > > STRI´s Héctor Guzmán, a member of the team that conducted the long-term study on the impacts of the Panama oil spill in 1986, expressed his concerns in Scientific American: There is no cure. "The only way to remove it is mechanically, and that will destroy further the whole habitat.” “The priority is to set up barriers and stop the oil.” But “once the oil, because of high tides or high winds, gets into the coastal wetland, it gets trapped in the sediment… Then for decades you continue to see oil coming back out, this chronic pollution.” The coral reefs in Panama have never recovered, and oil is still found in the mangrove swamps. While the environments are somewhat different, the results are likely to be similar. ---
**Author:** ![rbroome](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/838e76/32.png) [@rbroome](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rbroome)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2010, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-natural-oil-eating-organisms-will-gobble-up-most-of-the-gulf-oil-spill/540892/9 "2010-05-27T01:32:50Z")
> [@astro](#): > > Re the current Gulf oil spill and it’s long term impact, I was talking with someone today who said that based on the data we collected from the history of the Alaskan Exxon Valdez spill, that oil eating organisms in the environment will gobble up the majority of the oil within a few years at most, and all the strenuous exertions we are undertaking to disperse and collect the oil are a huge waste of time and effort relative to how quickly natural mechanisms will clear the oil. > > Is this true? For some factual information see: [response.restoration.noaa.gov/book\_shelf/965\_HelpHind.pdf](http://response.restoration.noaa.gov/book_shelf/965_HelpHind.pdf) It is a report done in 1995 on the impact of oil spills on marshes. As one can imagine, the impacts range widely and depend on a lot of factors. Recovery times range from a few weeks to \> 20 years. The type of oil is a major factor but a another major factor is the climate. Temperate to cold regions take a very long time to recover. Warmer to subtropical regions recover much faster. The major impact on recovery however is what remediation is performed. The more you disturb the marsh the worse things get. No remediation can, is some cases, be the best thing one can do. In some cases remediation is helpful. In an oil spill in Maine remediation consisted of burning the marsh. That got rid of large amounts of oil with almost no damage to the vegitation. But the same thing tried in Texas didn’t go so well-probably because there the burns were repeated several times. So the short answer to the OP is it depends. Doing nothing is often the best answer, some forms of remediation are helpful, some forms of remediation succeed in destroying the marsh and leaving behind large amounts of oil. ---
**Author:** ![NinetyWt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/cc9497/32.png) [@NinetyWt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NinetyWt)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2010, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-natural-oil-eating-organisms-will-gobble-up-most-of-the-gulf-oil-spill/540892/10 "2010-05-27T01:34:04Z")
Regarding Colibiri’s post: that is party due to the quiet nature of coastal marshes. You don’t have a lot of water going in and out. “A few years” is ludicrous. “A few decades” might touch it. ---
**Author:** ![rbroome](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/838e76/32.png) [@rbroome](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rbroome)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2010, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-natural-oil-eating-organisms-will-gobble-up-most-of-the-gulf-oil-spill/540892/11 "2010-05-27T01:42:06Z")
Colibri, thanks for your post. It re-enforces what I have heard and also corrects a misconception. Once oil is in an ecosystem it is impossible to get out and trying to remove the oil can cause more damage than the oil. I thought that oil in sub-tropical to tropical climate would greatly speed up the natural degradation of the oil. While that may be true it doesn’t mean the oil is gone. Speed up doesn’t mean it disappears. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2010, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-natural-oil-eating-organisms-will-gobble-up-most-of-the-gulf-oil-spill/540892/12 "2010-05-27T02:26:19Z")
It is true there are natural forces at work that usually keep the normal natural seepage at bay. But it could take a decade or even longer for the Gulf to recover, and some areas- (as **Colibri** pointed out) may not recover for a lifetime. If we are talking geologic eras, then sure, 10’s of thousands of years from now, no one will be able to tell. The damage is going to be very severe, and the worst of it will last for a significant period, maybe only two years if we are really lucky. As **dracoi** pointed out, that damage will cost the economy many many times what the oil could possibly have brought in. The risk just plain isn’t worth it. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2010, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-natural-oil-eating-organisms-will-gobble-up-most-of-the-gulf-oil-spill/540892/13 "2010-05-27T03:16:47Z")
[QUOTE=astro;12502711within a few years at most … Is this true?[/QUOTE] Well, yes, in a geological sense. Where they measure time in era’s 65 million years or so, or smaller epochs of only 10-15 million years. So a millennium or two, like say the 2010 years of the calendar – that is “a few years” on such time scales. But it may seem like a long time to humans. ---
**Author:** ![Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tastes_of_chocolate/32/3232_2.png) [@Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tastes_of_Chocolate)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2010, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-natural-oil-eating-organisms-will-gobble-up-most-of-the-gulf-oil-spill/540892/14 "2010-05-27T20:20:30Z")
The answer is going to depend on where in the environment the oil ends up. One the surface, microbes will digest oil, faster in warm climates. [Time](http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,917877,00.html) had a story on it from 1975, it’s not new. [http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/05/050517063708.htm](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/05/050517063708.htm) ran a story in 2005 about the discovery of a bacteria in Spain capable of breaking down crude oil. Thinking back to my college days, (meaning no cite), I remember the time frame for this being in the range of a few years. BUT… That only applies to oil that is available for the microbes to digest. [National Geographic](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/05/100507-science-environment-gulf-mexico-oil-spill-cleanup-bacteria/) > [@](#): > > Still, there is a bright side when it comes to microbial action in the Gulf, said Stan Senner, conservation director for the Ocean Conservancy. > > The region’s warm and sunny climate means that more microbes can stick around for longer, as compared with the colder, darker conditions in Alaska, the site of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill. (Related: “Exxon Valdez Anniversary: 20 Years Later, Oil Remains.”) > > But these kinds of microbes only work where they can breathe, Senner noted. Once oil becomes buried in oxygen-poor sediments, “microbial action can be very slow to nonexistent.” (Related: “Gulf Oil Spill a ‘Dead Zone in the Making’?”) > > And when oil gets trapped underground, it can stay for decades, according to Gregory Stone, director of Louisiana State University’s Coastal Studies Unit. > > For instance, on the Mississippi coast—where smaller oil spills have washed ashore in the past—researchers have found oil as deep as 20 feet (about 6 meters), Stone said. > > If oil sinks into the soils of the Gulf’s breadbasket—the marshes—there’s nothing nature or humans can do to stop it, experts say—and that could present a toxic nightmare for small animals that live in the sediments and the larger creatures that eat them. So yes, oil eating organisms will break down oil fairly quickly, as long as the oil is in a condusive location. The problem is that oil will be/is getting into areas that are much less microb friendly. ---
**Author:** ![wheresmymind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/91b2a8/32.png) [@wheresmymind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wheresmymind)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2010, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-natural-oil-eating-organisms-will-gobble-up-most-of-the-gulf-oil-spill/540892/15 "2010-05-28T02:53:37Z")
It’s true that there are plenty of oil-degrading bacteria in marine waters: they’ve been well-studied over the years. From Coulon et al. 2007 “The effects of temperature and biostimulation on oil-degrading microbial communites in temperate estuarine waters” Environmental Microbiology 9:177-86: “The addition of crude oil to estuarine water resulted in an immediate change in bacterial community structure, increased abundance of hydrocarbon-degrading microorganisms and a rapid rate of oil degradation, suggesting the presence of a pre-adapted oil-degrading microbial community…” Basically, this study found that \>90% of the oil added to microcosms of seawater collected near the mouth of the Thames was degraded by bacteria within 90 days. There are plenty of other studies similar to this in other systems, I can site if you like. So yes, there are plenty of naturally-occurring bacteria that are happy to respire hydrocarbons, after all, natural hydrocarbon seeps dump more oil into the ocean globally than humans do. The problem with oil spills is that they’re acute, and the bacteria can run out of either nutrients (N and P mostly) or oxygen (the oil-degrading bacteria seem to all be aerobes, although there may be some anaerobic bacteria and archea that can degrade hydrocarbons at MUCH slower rates) way before they run out of oil. Marsh sediments go anoxic at the drop of a hat, so any oil trapped in the sediments would likely stay there for many years (say decades). Incidentally, a review by Pezeshki et al. 2000 in the journal Environmental Pollution found that Gulf Coast marsh plants (mostly Spartina alternaflora and patens) CAN BE relatively resilient when it comes to hydrocarbon contamination - but there’s a lot of variability, sometimes they do fine, sometimes they’re toast. They concluded that the best strategy for dealing with marsh cleanup is to do it in such a way that it minimizes the mechanical damage to the marsh: thousands of volunteers and marsh buggies tromping around can have as much of an impact as the oil itself. However, this only places more emphasis on the importance of intercepting the oil BEFORE it gets to the marsh - once it’s there, it will likely stay there for a LONG time (again, think decades) due to the low oxygen levels in salt marsh sediments. So your friend is right in that there is a pretty impressive natural capacity for the environment to recover from an oil spill, in the same way that humans have a pretty impressive natural capacity to recover from gunshot wounds to the head - the fact that it happens at all seems miraculous. ---
**Author:** ![wheresmymind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/91b2a8/32.png) [@wheresmymind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wheresmymind)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2010, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-natural-oil-eating-organisms-will-gobble-up-most-of-the-gulf-oil-spill/540892/16 "2010-05-28T03:07:06Z")
> [@dracoi](#): > > The presence of natural tar and asphalt pits shows that there are very few natural organisms capable of living in or digesting crude oil. > > However, even if such natural organisms existed, “in a few years” is way the hell too long to just sit it out and do nothing. It’s not like plants and animals can go into suspended animation until we give them the all-clear. They’ll die in a matter of days if they get covered in oil. > > Even if you don’t care much for wildlife, that will put fishermen and tourism-industry-employees out of work and could cripple the economies of whole cities or even states. Actually, the presence of natural tar/asphalt pits (and to a greater extent tar sands) is evidence FOR the existence of oil digesting organisms - they’re the result of biodegradation within what was once an oil reservoir. It’s surprising, but there are about 80 genera of bacteria, over 100 genera of fungi, and 14 algal genera capable of respiring or modifying petroleum hydrocarbons, and they’re well-distributed around the world. (Head et al. 2006 “Marine microorganisms make a meal out of oil” Nature Reviews Microbiology 4:173-182) But your second point is still true - especially when it comes to marsh recovery, the less oil that reaches the ecosystem and the less time it stays there, the better. ---
**Author:** ![Kevbo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e47774/32.png) [@Kevbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kevbo)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2010, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-natural-oil-eating-organisms-will-gobble-up-most-of-the-gulf-oil-spill/540892/17 "2010-05-28T04:12:33Z")
There ARE microbes that eat oil. Digesting it takes a lot of oxygen. So if there is lots of oil feeding lots of microbes, then the microbes will consume all the available oxygen which puts a damper on the oil feast, and also kills all the fish that were planning their own uses for that oxygen. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2010, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-natural-oil-eating-organisms-will-gobble-up-most-of-the-gulf-oil-spill/540892/18 "2010-05-28T14:00:58Z")
In much the same way, natural processes will eventually reduce all the bullets and shells from World War II that litter the European countryside to oxidized lumps, or the crust they lie in will eventually be folded back into the mantle and melted. That doesn’t bring back to life the 50 million people killed in World War II, though. What we’re doing in the gulf is trying to protect currently living organisms so that they can propagate. Waiting a few decades for the microbes to remove the traces doesn’t help those animals. . ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2010, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-natural-oil-eating-organisms-will-gobble-up-most-of-the-gulf-oil-spill/540892/19 "2010-06-02T02:43:42Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > That doesn’t bring back to life the 50 million people killed in World War II, though. Or even the few dozen killed each year currently from the leftover, unexploded munitions from these wars that they encounter accidentally. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2010, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-natural-oil-eating-organisms-will-gobble-up-most-of-the-gulf-oil-spill/540892/20 "2010-06-02T02:59:24Z")
(1981) [Fate of Oil From Two Major Oil Spills: Role of Microbial Degradation…:](http://www.scribd.com/doc/32238527/Fate-of-Oil-From-Two-Major-Oil-Spills-Amoco-Cadiz-and-Ixtoc-1-Spills) > [@](#): > > Discussion… > > The biodegradation of hydrocarbons from within mousse from IXTOC I appears to be severly limited. Mousse collected some distance from the wellhead showed no evidence of biodegradation, and during laboratory incubation no significant alteration in the composition of the mousse was observed for 4 months. The rate of complete degradation of hydrocarbons in mousse was of the order of less than 5% per year. The lack of biodegradation of hydrocarbons in the mousse may be due to a severe nutritional limitation in the surface waters of the Gulf of Mexico and to an unfavorable surface to volume ratio… Lousiana isn’t Mexico, so maybe the emulsion (mousse) will get eaten faster this time. Then again, maybe not. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-that-natural-oil-eating-organisms-will-gobble-up-most-of-the-gulf-oil-spill/540892.md?page=2)