BlueInGreen NEWSWIRE
BlueInGreen Deployment in the Gulf of Mexico
The BlueInGreen crew have been set up on Bayou Cumbest in Grand Bay (close to the Alabama border in Mississippi) for the past week and a half now adding dissolved oxygen to the bayou as part of a study funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation. The aim of this study is to get a hold on how efficiently and effectively SDOX technology can add dissolved oxygen to brackish or salty waters.
BlueInGreen set up at Bayou Cumbest - SDOX, liquid oxygen tank, and diesel generator.
Part of the goal of the study is that if another oil spill should happen, BlueInGreen will be ready to add oxygen to enhance bioremediation from microbes eating the oil. Most scientists have concurred that the microbial activity resulting from cleaning up of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill of April 2010 only resulted in around a 20 percent drop in dissolved oxygen levels. While this is not enough to classify the waters affected by the oil spill a dead zone (that would require around a 75 percent drop), such a drop in dissolved oxygen levels can still significantly affect local flora and fauna. This depletion of dissolved oxygen can also slow the rate at which the microbes consume oil. By adding sufficient levels of dissolved oxygen, BlueInGreen’s SDOX technology can help support a more rapid degradation of spilled oil, especially in the shallow waters of estuaries and marshes, which can’t be cleaned mechanically the way that beaches can. These areas are also particularly sensitive to environmental problems because they are nurseries for fisheries and support an amazing amount of life. SDOX technology is particularly suited for adding dissolved oxygen to these areas because, while traditional aeration technologies rely on depth for the transference of oxygen into water, the SDOX is able to add dissolved oxygen at any depth with the same efficiency because of its patented and patents-pending process. As you can see in the picture below, even at 4 feet of depth, there are no bubbles coming from the injection point of the SDOX, only some mixing of the water, indicating that all of the oxygen that goes through the SDOX system is being delivered as dissolved oxygen.
SDOX injection point (aimed in two directions from red buoy) in 4 feet of water. No bubbles, only some mixing of the water.
Looking even further ahead, BlueInGreen will have obtained from this study the data necessary to evaluate SDOX’s possible efficacy in resolving the hypoxia affecting so much of the northern Gulf of Mexico (http://gulfhypoxia.net/). To date, the majority of BlueInGreen’s activity has been in fresh water. Through the NSF study, BlueInGreen will be able to determine the viability of using SDOX technology to tackle some of the major oxygen depletion problems in the salt waters of the mouth of the Mississippi River. Once the study is completed, BlueInGreen will have the information necessary to size large-scale SDOX systems to place in the heart of the dead zones of the Gulf of Mexico. Since it is unlikely that large-scale agriculture in the Mississippi River basin will change significantly enough in the coming years to naturally reduce hypoxia in the Gulf, SDOX technology could become an indispensable resource for remediation of oxygen-depleted waters which have become or are becoming unsuitable for aquatic life.