The oil that was spilled consists of C6-C8 hydrocarbons, that they claim will break up rapidly. Because the spill occurred in a river (running water), and because it breaks up fairly rapidly, or so they say, it is unlikely that they used a dispersant to break up the oil within the water, but we should find out!
We can all the CRD or the people who are in charge of the clean up.
As I was saying, we can as how long it will take the oil to settle below the surface of the water from a chemistry perspective (%).
The clean up group have been using booms to adsorb the oil, as you may have noticed while traveling from Victoria. These booms are usually made up of the starchy popcorn packaging stuff, which is a non- polar substance, and therefore does not bond with water, so it will only adsorb the oil. My idea is that we could make our own boom and see how much oil we can soak up over the short time we are there.
Love the idea of making our own boom as a test sample, also thought we could take some water samples from near where the diesil originally entered the water, and then after a series of booms so as to see if there is a difference or not.
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ReplyDeleteAnd if we can convince them to take us to the estuary, we can get some samples of the water there (the fresh water mixes with the salt water from the ocean). We can use the hexane on the fresh water and the salt water and determine how quickly the oil is removed from one verses the other. We can then link it to the life cycles of the salmon that are returning to and from the estuary.
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