Bioremediation on the shore after an oil spill from the Nakhodka in the Sea of Japan. III. Field tests of a bioremediation agent with microbiologicalcultures for the treatment of an oil spill

We conducted a field test to confirm the effectiveness of a seed culture of petroleum-degrading bacteria, TerraZyme(TM) (Oppenheimer Biotechnology) fo r enhancing the biodegradation of heavy oil spilled from the Nakhodka on th e shore. We defined two designated sites: one for treatment, and a second s ite 40 m distant as an untreated control site for the experiments, In each site, me prepared the rocks and concrete blocks polluted by the oil? by pla cing them in wire cages on the beach. The experiments were carried out for eight weeks. Once a week, we photographed the rocks and concrete blocks, tr eated their surfaces with TerraZyme(TM), and determined the coverage of rem aining oil on the substrates from the photographs using digital photographi c image analysis, The test results clearly show that TerraZyme(TM) is able to significantly enhance the biodegradation of oil on the shore. (C) 2000 E lsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.