One scientist compares them to the yellow chompers in the Pac-Man video game — hungry, single-minded little microbes fueled by the same fertilizer farmers use on soybeans, gobbling hydrocarbons from the oily waters, marshes and shores of the Gulf of Mexico.
Can the naturally occurring microbes help clean up the oil spill? Yes, experts say. At least in part, with some risk.
Officials are taking note. Florida Gov. Charlie Crist on Thursday visited a Sarasota company that sells microbes that eat oil. BP says it’s open to using them. And the federal government is contacting its pre-approved list of more than a dozen companies to see how quickly they can ramp up production.
Scientists call the process bioremediation.
“You take natural oil-eating microbes in the water and give them fertilizer to make them multiply and degrade the oil faster. Oil is a natural product. It’s inherently biodegradable,” said Terry Hazen, microbial ecologist in the Earth Sciences Division of the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab in California.
Read Full Story
Article courtesy McClatchy-Tribune News Service via cleveland.com
