It’s a question I’ve heard quite often recently as people talk about the Gulf oil spill and the cleanup efforts: What happens to the oil and other stuff that’s cleaned up?
In the last few days BP has said it will sell the oil that it recovers and will donate the profits from it to wildlife efforts along the Gulf. Oil slicks floating on the surface can be burned.
But what about the oily sand that’s collected once the oil reaches the shore, the tarballs, dead birds and other animals, and plant material? Most of it will need to be treated as hazardous material, or at least tested, including the water from which oil has been separated and the water used to wash equipment and even oil-covered birds. Each state is handling it a bit differently. Waste Management Inc. has contracted with BP to haul oil-contaminated materials from the coastal cleanup efforts, and as of Sunday the company said it had dedicated 65 trucks and hundreds of containers to the task. Landfills in three states are also designated to handle the cleaned-up materials.
Even after the oil is separated from the water in holding tanks, enough residuals and salt remain in the water that it can’t just be released into a freshwater system. Transporting it back to the ocean is too expensive, so much of it is going to landfills as well, such as the River Birch Landfill near Avondale, Louisiana, which has a class 1 injection well facility to accept it.