Oil spills did not end with the spill of January 1971. They were a constant feature of the shipping business of the Bay. The bilge water of freighters and cruise ships normally collect lubricants and fuel from the engine room in addition to human and other wastes. Some ships routinely dumped their bilge water some distance outside the Golden Gate leading to oiled birds and tarred beach rocks and sands. Today, ships are held to higher standards.
The Bunker C fuel oil dumped out with the bilge water quickly weathers into a thicker substance that was much too viscous to be easily removed from birds with mineral oil. Enter the use of lighter weight solvents such as Sol 70 from Shell Oil Company. It quickly cleaned birds fouled with thick oils such as weathered Bunker C and many of the birds could be released with a day – but there were negatives:
- The birds ended up ‘drunk’ for a couple of hours after being cleaned.
- The people doing the cleaning needed to protect themselves with aprons, goggles, respirators, and a barrier cream on their hands.
- Sol 70’s flashpoint of 104 °F matched the body temperature of the birds we were cleaning, forcing us to warm the solvent to a dangerous level.
The possibility of the entire cleaning facility going up in flames was worse than worrisome.
People from around the country informed us about their successes removing lighter oils with various dish soaps and other detergents. Alice Berkner – the executive director – and i decided we needed to put some detergents to the test with the aim of having a second cleaning regimen that was safer for people.
I dove into the scientific literature around detergents, visited an industrial research facility, put out requests to our friends in the oil industry, and started buying detergents off of grocery shelves. One day a truck from Standard Oil drove up to IBRRC and dropped off a 5 gallon container of a clear liquid detergent called Eco Plus. The driver explained that the company used this stuff to clean oily equipment and to remove any oil spilled on walkways.
With more than a dozen detergents to test, we needed a ‘testing apparatus.’ I mounted a barbecue rotisserie motor to a wooden frame such that it turned an 18 inch long piece of wood about 3 inches square in cross section. Along each side of that piece of wood i attached caps from Gerber’s baby food jars (mostly applesauce since that was the easiest eating). I half filled numbered baby food jars with various detergents in various concentrations, dropped in oiled feathers from our collection of frozen carcasses, screwed the jars onto the lids, and turned on the motor. It worked fairly well agitating the jar contents. We knew what kinds of oil we were dealing with since the carcasses were labeled. I kept records of the each detergent solution, oil, time agitated, and how well the oil was removed.
This Rube Goldberg setup worked well enough to determine at what concentration each of the detergents worked best. Then Es Anderson – a wonderful volunteer – ran a long series of trials with carefully controlled times and temperatures. “An oiled feather was dropped into 25 ml of detergent solution at 40°C in a pint jar. The lid was quickly secured and the solution was gently agitated with a uniform motion for 15 seconds. The degree of agitation was duplicated as closely as possible for each trial. The contents of the jar were then immediately dumped into a colander and gently rinsed with 40°C water.” (The temperature of 40°C is the same as 104 °F, the body temperature of birds.)
There was no question about the best oil-cleaning detergent; Eco Plus easily out-performed every other cleaner.
Alice contacted Standard Oil to request several more 5 gallon containers of Eco Plus so that we would have enough on hand for a major spill. A few days later came the return call from Standard Oil; Eco Plus was no longer available. Incredible! How could that be? The best oil-cleaning detergent suddenly out of production?!! We called other possible sources and got the same reply: no longer available. Sigh.
I wrote up the results, mentioning that Eco Plus was eliminated from the trials because “we had trouble finding more of the product.” I insisted that Alice allow me to name her as a co-author, largely because she refused to be named as a co-author on a previous paper, in spite of the fact she helped me greatly in writing it. At first she refused since she had very little to do with this study (other than to cover my duties at IBRRC while i was testing and writing). However, the next day she acquiesced on condition that Anne Williams also be named as a co-author. Anne, one of the volunteers, had her sights set on entering veterinary school, so having her name on a publication might be helpful. I agreed since to me IBRRC only survived since it was a communal effort. I added their names and submitted it for possible acceptance at the 1977 International Oil Spill Conference funded by the American Petroleum Institute.
Some weeks later, the same Standard Oil truck with the same driver pulled up to IBRRC. They had found another 5 gallon container of Eco Plus. I unlocked the storage shed, and as we were placing the drum next to the other one, i told the driver just how good the stuff was and how incredible that no more of it was available. The driver looked over at me, paused, came close and whispered, “There’s a new dish detergent. It’s called Dawn. It’s blue.”
“For real?”
The driver nodded.
“Where can i find some?”
“I’ve seen it in grocery stores. Not all of them have it, but you can find it.”
“Why would they name it ‘Don’? That’s weird. Why not call it ‘Jim’ or ‘Henry’.”
“No, it’s Dawn, like when the sun rises.”
“Oh. Got it. Thanks.”
I immediately went shopping, found a bottle, and ran side by side tests with Eco Plus late into the night. The results were absolutely identical.
In March 1977 when i took the stage in New Orleans for the International Oil Spill Conference, i told the audience that they should read my paper printed in the Proceedings for the data and discussions there, because there was too much to cover in the time i was allotted on-stage. I showed them slides of oily feathers being cleaned and a photomicrograph showing how using a detergent solution that was too concentrated resulted in a crystalline substance that was impervious to further cleaning. I also told them they could ignore the detergent test results because Eco Plus, after besting them all and disappearing from the face of the Earth, had reëmerged as a blue, lightly-scented dishwashing detergent named Dawn.