Portland State Magazine Fall 2010

1 J 1 ! The afterlife of Applying the research from one environmental disaster to the next. DIGGING in the intertidal zone in Alaska's McClure Bay in 2004, scientists found a pocket of oil four inches below the surface. This was to be expected; the team was working with the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council studying lingering oil 15 years after the tanker grounded on a reef and spi1led 11 million gallons of crude oil in Alaskan waters. But the small pocket of oil clid not feel or smell right to one of the scientists from the National Marine Fisheries Service Auke Bay Lab who requested it be tested. She was right. It was fuel oil spilled 25 years before the Exxon Valdez during the Great Alaskan Earthquake of 1964. "Oil lasts a lot longer than we ever thought," says Katie Springman, a member of that 2004 team of scientists and now a researcher in Portland State's Chemistry Department. Springman, a molecular toxicologist, has spent the past seven years exploring the aftereffects of the Alaskan North Slope crude oil that poured from the Exxon Valdez in 1989. Sruclies are funded from a government settlement made with Exxon. Is this research now relevant for the Gulf ofMexico, where 18 times as much oil is estimated to have leaked from BP's well? You bet, says Springman. She and her colleagues know the questions that need to be answered in the Gulf. Questions such as what does the oil's chemical profile do at different depths, how does it age, and the big unknown-how do clispersants affect it and the environment? Dispersants, which allow microbes to access oil more easily in the hopes of eventually breaking it down, were less important in che Valdez spill. "Just looking at the quantity of oil alone is bad," says Springman, "and use of clispersants changes everything." DATA STRONG LY SUGGEST , says Springman, that oil becomes more toxic by volume as it ages because its most toxic compounds-compounds that make the list of probable human carcinogens-linger while others dissipate. Some oil from the Valdez has remained in a form that wildlife can absorb. Springman's research has shown that even small amounts of oil could scrip animals of their immune systems. In addition, sea ducks continue to be exposed to the oil because of how they eat, says Springman. "They root around in the mud looking for invertebrates for clinner. Sea otters do the same thing and get the oil on their paws, and ingest it when they clean themselves," she says. Concerned over the toxicity of oil, Springman testified before a congressional committee last year about drilling on the outer conti– nental shelf. In her cescimony– that proved to be prophetic-she suggested that pre-drill environ– mental data be collected to serve as a basis for comparison after drilling. If an oil company harms the environment, even on a small scale, it can be known, she said. Ocean oil drilling is not going away, says Springman, buc "how about requiring-not zero release of oil-but zero effect, meaning not enough oil to make a fish sick." BY KATHRYN KIRKLAND FALL 20 10 PORTLA ND STATE MAGAZI NE 17