UWF to test for beach oil

The Santa Rosa Island Authority will pay the University of West Florida $40,000 to test for oil in water and sand just off the beach.
UWF's Center for Environmental Diagnostics and Bioremediation will conduct the tests in the surf zone — where most beachgoers swim and play — just off Casino Beach and between Park East and Gulf Islands National Seashore's Opal Beach area.
The center has been sampling sand from the surf zone since May and will continue to do so with the assistance of the Island Authority money, center director Dick Snyder said.
"We found no significant dissolved oil in the water, except when the tar mats were coming in," Snyder said.
That was in June, when waves of BP oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill washed up on Pensacola Beach.
Because it's unknown how much oil may be submerged on the Gulf floor and under the sand, Santa Rosa Island Authority Executive Director W.A. "Buck" Lee said the SRIA board wants the latest data ensuring them the water is safe.
"We tell everyone the water is clean," he said. "It's been clean. Now we'll have scientists tell us it's clean."
Lee said Snyder is able to get tests results within 24 hours, so the Island Authority will be able to warn beachgoers if more oil or oil pollutants show up.
Snyder said a student will take core samples of sand in the surf zone and create a 3D map charting how much oil is buried and at what depths, Snyder said.
Core samples will be taken over a period of time to help scientists understand how quickly the oil is disappearing through natural processes, such as weathering or being consumed by oil-eating microbes.
Other students will study the coquina mollusks that live by the thousands along the beachfront where the waves wash over the sand and where the BP oil first hit the beach.
"Mollusk are filter feeders, and they process a lot of water in the sand," Snyder said. "They don't have enzymes to break down the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons found in oil. They'll accumulate in the coquina."