Research project at Churchill facility raises alarm about potential impact of oil spill in Arctic waters

A natural remedy that has previously helped counter oil spills will be too slow to "do any useful work" if there's a spill in the Canadian Arctic, increasing chances of "catastrophic" harm, researchers say.

Preliminary findings from the GenIce II research team, led by Eric Collins from the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, suggest oil-degrading microbes respond very slowly to oil-contaminated Arctic waters.

"We do see that it takes at least a few weeks or a month for the microbes to respond and actually start to break down the oil, and that's just too long in the case of a real oil spill," said Collins, who has a doctorate in biological oceanography and is a Canada Research Chair in Arctic Marine Microbial Ecosystem Services. 

In November, the GenIce II research team (GenIce is short for genomics and ice) began work at the $45-million observatory in Churchill, Man., to better understand and observe the potential impact of an oil spill in the Arctic marine environment.

Collins said the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill served as a "wake-up call" for researchers to study the impact of "natural microbial communities" in oil-contaminated water.

It is believed that during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, microbes cleaned up nearly 10 times more than humans did. The spill released more than half a billion litres of oil into the Gulf of Mexico over an 87-day period, killing thousands of marine species and contaminating the natural habitat. 

Collins's research team is focused on how microbes respond to oil in Arctic waters, as opposed to water in warmer regions like the Gulf of Mexico, where the Deepwater Horizon spill happened. 

With the shipping season in the Hudson Bay extending due to melting Arctic ice and an expected increase in shipping and marine traffic through the bay, experts say the chance of an oil spill is increasing.

An oil spill near the coastline is particularly concerning to Collins because the current circulation in Hudson Bay could spread the contamination all along the coastline, endangering the ecosystem and, in turn, surrounding communities, many of which depend on the natural environment for sustenance.

Collins' team is conducting research at the new Churchill Marine Observatory — without which Collins says the GenIce II project "wouldn't be possible." 

"There's no way we would get permission to put oil directly into the water in order to test the effects of an oil spill on the Arctic community, so the fact that we have these large tanks that we can pump water from Hudson Bay into and do the experiments in a controlled setting is really important," Collins said.

The facility runs seawater through a pumphouse into two pools where the experiments occur. One pool remains uncontaminated, while oil is placed in the other pool; after the experiment is complete, the oil is removed and the water is cleaned using an on-site wastewater treatment facility, and then released back into the ocean after a third party tests its cleanliness. 

Feiyue Wang, who heads the Churchill Marine Observatory, says the facility's ability to perform controlled experiments in natural Arctic waters is unique. 

Since plans for the facility were announced in 2015, it has captured the attention of international researchers, particularly from Arctic countries, Wang said — interest he expects will lead to more collaborative research with international partners.