Oil Biodegradation and Bioremediation: A Tale of the Two Worst Spills in U.S. History

“The devastating environmental impacts of the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989 and its media notoriety made it a frequent comparison to the BP Deepwater Horizon spill in the popular press in 2010, even though the nature of the two spills and the environments impacted were vastly different. Fortunately, unlike higher organisms that are adversely impacted by oil spills, microorganisms are able to consume petroleum hydrocarbons. These oil degrading indigenous microorganisms played a significant role in reducing the overall environmental impact of both the Exxon Valdez and BP Deepwater Horizon oil spills.”

This is a cool feature, it summarizes the bioremediation efforts for both the Exxon Valdez and Deepwater Horizon oil spills. We have discussed story format a lot this semester and this article claims that it is presenting a “tale”, so we could assess the quality of storytelling.