Characterization of oil and water accommodated fractions used to conduct aquatic toxicity testing in support of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill natural resource damage assessment

Abstract

The Deepwater Horizon blowout resulted in the release of millions of barrels of crude oil. As part of the Trustees' Natural Resource Damage Assessment, a testing program was implemented to evaluate the toxicity of Deepwater Horizon oil and oil/dispersant mixtures to aquatic organisms from the Gulf of Mexico. Because of the variety of exposures that likely occurred, the program included 4 Deepwater Horizon oils, which encompassed a range of weathering states, and 3 different oil-in-water mixing methods, for a total of 12 unique water accommodated fractions (WAFs). The present study reports on the chemical characteristics of these 4 Deepwater Horizon oils and 12 WAFs. In addition, to better understand exposure chemistry, an examination was conducted of the effects of WAF preparation parameters-including mixing energy, starting oil composition, and oil-to-water mixing ratios-on the chemical profiles and final concentrations of these 12 WAFs. The results showed that the more weathered the starting oil, the lower the concentrations of the oil constituents in the WAF, with a shift in composition to the less soluble compounds. In addition, higher mixing energies increased the presence of insoluble oil constituents. Finally, at low to mid oil-to-water mixing ratios, the concentration and composition of the WAFs changed with changing mixing ratios; this change was not observed at higher mixing ratios (i.e., >1 g oil/L). Ultimately, the present study provides a basic characterization of the oils and WAFs used in the testing program, which helps to support interpretation of the more than 500 Deepwater Horizon Natural Resource Damage Assessment toxicity testing results and to enable a comparison of these results with different tests and with the field. Environ Toxicol Chem 2017;36:1450-1459. © 2016 SETAC.