Ten Years of Research by the U.S. Oil Industry to Evaluate the Ecological Issues of Dispersant Use: An Overview of the Past Decade

Abstract

ABSTRACT The Marine Spill Response Corporation (MSRC) and the American Petroleum Institute (API) recently completed a multiyear research program on dispersants and dispersed oil consisting of four elements: information synthesis and dissemination, improved laboratory methods for toxicity evaluation, mesocosm testing, and field experiments. These research efforts contributed to the recent changes in the way dispersants are viewed in the United States. When combined with other research findings from the last 10 years, this information, now available to response planners, greatly improved and contributed to a growing interest in the use of dispersants, including the potential for the extension of preauthorization areas. The primary objectives of this paper are to summarize the objectives of the program, highlight major findings, and identify the sources where the results can be examined in detail.