Marine oil pollution is the pollution of the waters mainly in the seas and coastal waters or oceans caused by human activities resulting in oil spills. The spills can be from oil tankers, pipelines, wells or drilling rigs. The oils spills have negative impacts on the environment, the ecosystem in the marine system and the human society as well. Some of the largest oil spills witnessed in the human history include the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, Alaska oil spill, Galapagos Islands among others. Notably, oil spills in the seas and oceans are more dangerous because they spread over a wide area forming coating layer over water. They are highly catastrophic unlike spills over the land because few organisms would be affected by localized spills. Several efforts have been advanced to tackle the menace of oil spills. The first one relates to limiting occurrence followed by processes such as biodegradation when they have occurred. In extreme cases, fines and compensations have been adopted to increase surveillance level. Pollution affects the marine ecosystem and its prevention is the best way for both the land inhabitants who rely on the sea for a livelihood and the native organisms.
Causes
Marine oil pollution is largely caused by oil spillage from oil tankers and secondly by other vessels using oil at sea (Wardley-Smith, 2012). During transportation the heavy oil, a tanker can be involved in an accident such as breakage due to heavy weight and poor designing and maintaining of the tankers or even an explosion resulting to serious damages and in some cases a total loss. These accidents result in the spillage of oil into the marine ecosystem. Another cause for marine oil pollution is the pipelines that pass either near or through the water bodies (Wardley-Smith, 2012). When these pipelines break, they release the oil into the sea and causes pollution. However, the major cause of marine pollution involves oil spillage from tanker ships.
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Ramifications of Continuing the Pollution
Oil spillage has negative impacts first to the marine ecosystem and secondly to the human beings however the greatest impact is on the marine life.
Impacts on the Marine Life
The marine lives including fishes derive their livelihood entirely from the clean water. During oil spillage, hydrocarbons are released into the environment which causes great harm to the marine ecosystem (Alford, Peterson, & Green, 2014). First, the oil spillage inhibits the process of oxygen dissolving into the water thereby lowering oxygen levels in the water. The hydrocarbons released include aliphatic, monoaromatic, polycyclic hydrocarbons and crude oil among others. These spills have an impact on the marine life development, histopathology, immunology, genotype and reproductive systems (Alford, Peterson, & Green, 2014). In addition, the oil spills affect the fish habitats by promoting the proliferation of marshes a process known as eutrophication.
The impacts of the oil spillage on the marine life depend on the risk involved in contact and the vulnerability of the organisms exposed (Fingas, 2014). This can be observed in the response of microorganism to an oil spill and other life forms such as fish. The microorganism may be advantaged at this incidence since they will have obtained nutrients while the fish are likely to die from such an occurrence.
Strategies to Combat Oil Pollution
Several approaches have been developed to solve oil spillage including bioremediation, use of sorbents, dispersants, burning of the oil at sea, chemical barriers, and dipping agents.
Biodegradation
Biodegradation can be classified into natural biodegradation and enhanced biodegradation.
Natural Biodegradation
Natural biodegradation relies on natural means to combat the oil spill. The natural process of the process entails wind blowing and dispersing the oil and the sun causing evaporation of the oil layers and microorganisms to degrade the oil. However, this method is slow unreliable requiring close monitoring in case a more combative approach is necessary (Doerffer, 2013). Natural biodegradation is largely applied in water bodies where the spill is not expected to cause great harm.
Enhanced Biodegradation
Natural biodegradation is slow requiring even up to six months to run to completion. This process can be enhanced through the enhanced biodegradation techniques. This process can be speeded up by the introduction of nitrogen and phosphorus to the environment, which is normally at lower levels in the sea and is necessary for the sea microorganism activity and increasing the proliferation of the sea microorganisms to act speedily on the oil spill (Fingas, 2014). Enhanced biodegradation cannot be applied as the only solution and its application should involve the incorporation of other techniques (Doerffer, 2013). The process of enhanced biodegradation is largely applied in remote coastal areas where the application of other techniques is expensive or technical and insensitive regions to avoid the harms resulting in applications of other dangerous means such as fire.
Chemical Barriers
Chemical barriers are chemicals that help in the modification of the surface tension thereby influencing the oil spill spread. The chemical barriers are spread next to the oil spills and they lower the surface tension pushing the oil spill together and allowing for other chemical means of controlling the oil spill. These chemical agents can reduce the rate of oil spill dispersion up to 5 hours thus allowing time for the installation of mechanical measures to collect the oil (Doerffer, 2013). This technique can be carried out more efficiently through the use of helicopters to spray the chemicals and is more effective when applied three times within a time span of six hours which makes it more effective in reducing the oil spill area to a workable minimum region for oil collection.
Oil Sinking Agents
This technique involves the sinking of the oil deep into the sea using agents such as sand, chalk, fish ash, clay, or cement. When these agents are applied to the oil spill, they absorb the oil and become heavy thus sinking into the sea bottom. However, these techniques have long-term effects, which necessitate its avoidance. The limitations include the harm posed to the lower level natural flora and that the oil has impacts on multiple layers of life forms as it coats them. Over time, the spill may spread at the sea bottom over a wider area than anticipated. Lastly, the oil spills may resurface again under temperatures favoring its release back to the surface (Doerffer, 2013).
Sorbents
Sorbents are often applied at the final stage of oil cleaning to polishing the process and have a minimum negative side effect on the marine ecology. Some of the sorbent applied includes sawdust, wood chips and pine barks (Doerffer, 2013). These agents work on the principle of capillary action and work best with heavy oils since their retention of denser oils in the pores is more efficient as opposed to less dense oils. The sorbent agents should be able to absorb more oil and less water in order to be effective. the sorbents are distributed on the affected area, collected or harvested and separation from the contaminant undertaken in this case the oil, the contaminant is then disposed or stored and the used sorbent can be reused again or disposed of (Doerffer, 2013).
Chemical dispersants
Chemical dispersants are agents that are both soluble in water and the oil thus when distributed on the affected areas they act as tension breaker separating the oil and water layers and collecting in small droplets. This method may have toxic effects on the marine system and is not effective with highly viscous oil spills (Doerffer, 2013).
Burning of oil spills
The burning of oil spills literally involves the use of fire and addition of burning agents such as kerosene, wicking agents like straw among others (Fingas, 2014). Thus, to enhance the burning of oil spills, the igniters should be able to raise the temperature at levels that will favor evaporation of the oil into moisture level that then combines with the atmospheric oxygen and speeds up combustion and wickers which enhances the process.
Designing of the Tankers
Since the greatest percentage of oil spills comes from oil tankers, measures have been adopted to ensure that the tankers are designed to possess strength and carry the safest tonnage (Wardley-Smith, 2012). The strategy of limiting the tonnage design of an oil tanker will help to reduce oil spillage resulting from overload and breakages.
Conclusion
The marine ecosystem serves a great benefit to the human population from transport and being a source of livelihood to many. The conservation of this system is therefore imperative and human beings should take special care on how they exploit the resources availed by the marine ecosystem. Marine pollution resulting from oil spillage is the major pollution affecting the marine life directly and human beings indirectly. Measures such as regulation of oil tankers tonnage and designs should be enforced with other regulations such as compensation fines to help boost the sea safety.
References
Doerffer, J. W. (2013). Oil spill response in the marine environment . New York, NY: Elsevier.
Alford, J. B., Peterson, M. S., & Green, C. C. (Eds.). (2014). Impacts of oil spill disasters on marine habitats and fisheries in North America. New York, NY: CRC Press.
Wardley-Smith, J. (Ed.). (2012). the prevention of oil pollution. New York, NY: Springer Science & Business Media.
Fingas, M. (Ed.). (2014). Handbook of oil spill science and technology . New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons.
