SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

pleasure to be here today to discuss EPA’s oil spill research program, its past accomplishments, and future research plans. For the past 20 years, I have led EPA’s oil spill research and development program to conduct basic and applied research in both the laboratory and the field in the area of spill response technology development. I was an EPA team leader in the Exxon Valdez bioremediation project in 1989 and 1990. I also conceived and led an important controlled oil spill project on the shoreline of Delaware Bay in 19941, which demonstrated statistically that bioremediation with simple inorganic nutrients enhances the biodegradation rate of crude oil on a marine shoreline compared to natural attenuation without amendments. I repeated a similar experiment in 19992 on a Quebec freshwater wetland and again in 20013 on a Nova Scotia salt marsh in collaboration with our Canadian government partners. In addition to those field studies, I led a research team in developing laboratory protocols to test the effectiveness of commercial bioremediation agents and chemical dispersant products for use in treating oil spills4-6. I have conceived and led numerous other studies to understand how best to respond to and mitigate oil spills on land. The Environmental Threat of Oil Spill