| Summary: | RESIDUAL MUTAGENICITY OF THE ALASKAN OIL SPILL ORGANICS. L.D. The Exxon Valdez, on March 24, 1989, spilled approximately eleven million gallons of Prudhoe Bay crude oil into the waters of Prince William Sound. Approximately 300 miles of contaminated beach are potentially treatable by bioremediation methods. To understand whether not bioremediation is feasible in such rugged terrain and to examine for any potential deleterious effects, the U.S. EPA conducted one of the world's largest in situ bioremediation search projects. One of the methods used to assess any potential health effects associated with this and similar spills was the examination of mutagenicity associated with the oil spill, the weathered oil, and the products associated with bioremediation. Due to the characteristics of the samples, tests were done using the spiral Salmonella assay. Both the Prudhoe Bay crude oil and the weathered oils tested were weakly mutagenic using TA100. Organic samples collected from e treated beaches showed varying results depending upon the type and timing of the treatments. In the summer of 2001 , soil samples containing residual oil from a number of beaches were again asessed for mutagenicity. No mutagenicity could be demonstrated in the organic samples from the EPA treated beaches. This is an abstract of a proposed publication and does not necessarily present the views of the U.S. EPA or NOAA.
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