Quantifying natural vs. petroleum F3 hydrocarbons in oil spill impacted muskegs and drilling mud bioremediation applications

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Petroleum hydrocarbon contaminated soils and wastes can pose high toxicity risks to human health and the environment and are therefore regulated in accordance with the "Canada-Wide Standards (CWS) for Petroleum Hydrocarbons (PHCs) in Soil (Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment, 2000). However, hydrocarbons are also naturally produced by living organisms such as plants and animals. Currently, the CWS protocols misidentify biogenic hydrocarbons as petroleum hydrocarbons. As a result, the cleanest organic soils would be mistakenly identified as petroleum contaminated materials, resulting in unnecessary soil remediation and landfill disposal requirements.This research proposal will address false petroleum hydrocarbon exceedences through two laboratory-based simulation experiments. Each simulation will represent issues that are regularly faced by the Canadian petroleum industry. The first experiment will simulate a crude oil pipeline spill in a muskeg habitat. The second experiment will simulate the bioremediation of diesel-based drilling mud, composted with manure and straw. The unique chemical signatures of each component will be analyzed before they are combined into experiments one and two. Chemistry changes will be documented over a six-month study period. This data will be used to develop a method for subtracting BHC concentrations from true PHC concentrations. The major outcome of this project will be recommended improvements and revisions to the existing CWS petroleum analysis protocols. The elimination of unnecessary soil remediation and disposal requirements represents an estimated cost savings of $10 million dollars to the Canadian petroleum industry. Environmental benefits would include the conservation of valuable landfill space and natural habitat areas.