Marine Biological Monitoring of Oil
Refinery Liquid Waste Emissions
RAY T. OGLESBY, Research Assistant Professor of Sanitary Biology
ROBERT O. SYLVESTER, Professor of Sanitary Engineering
Department of Civil Engineering
University of Washington
Pullman, Washington
INTRODUCTION
How could a single industry discharging an industrial waste into the marine
environment determine the effect, if any, of this material on the adjacent water
quality, the beaches and the surrounding biological community? Variations in the
plant effluent, the possibility of accidental spills during ship to shore transfer operations, and the possibility of long term chronic biological effects indicated the
desirability of a continuous surveillance program. Requirements to be met included reliability, technological and economic feasibility, and the satisfaction of
appropriate regulatory agencies as to the program's validity and completeness.
This was the problem facing the General Petroleum Corporation (now the Mobil Oil Company) in 1953 when planning the construction of an oil refinery on the
southeast side of the Strait of Georgia in northern Puget Sound (Figures 1 and 2).
Prior to refinery operation an oceanographic and biological investigation of the
area (1) was undertaken in order to properly locate the effluent line to determine
conditions prior to operation of the refinery. After operation was begun, a second
survey (2) was conducted to find out the immediate impact, if any, of the effluent
on the local biota.
The refinery was designed to process 40,000 barrels per day of Canadian and
other crude oil into general products. Special handling facilities were provided
for the four plant sewers, namely, chemical, oil, sanitary, and storm. Lagoons,
revetments,  special valving and a waste water treatment plant was provided to
Erevent water pollution. Waste treatment included the physical, chemical, and
iological separation and degradation of oily and chemical waste waters along
with the sanitary sewage. A separate facility was constructed to treat tanker ballast water before its release into Georgia Strait. The principal waste treatment
works was a prototype of many others that followed at a later date elsewhere in
the world.
As described so far the program was similar to many others which have been
conducted in recent years for both industries and municipalities. The question
which now had to be answered concerned the type of program needed for continued monitoring in the future. The high cost of the initial comprehensive
studies and the difficulty in consistently obtaining the required specialists on a
short term basis precluded the frequent use of such a procedure for this purpose.
Evaluation of the initial studies suggested an attractive alternative, namely, an
annual examination of the intertidal zone to ascertain the state of its biological
communities. Supplementary information could easily be obtained at the same
time by such procedures as checking rocks along the beaches for physical signs of
oil spills, by interviewing local recreationists, and by examination of the oiota
on pilings of the refinery pier. Such a program was adapted by the refinery and
the latest monitoring survey in the series (3,4,5,6,7 and 8) will be described and
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