Sept. 15, 2019
Halifax scientist renowned expert in oil spill cleanup
By Brian Hayes
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| Ken Lee, a Halifax scientist who is an international expert on cleaning up major oil spills around the world, holds a sample of diluted bitumen, taken from the tar sands in Alberta in a lab at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography in Dartmouth. - Tim Krochak Photo |
Halifax native Dr. Kenneth Lee could never have imagined his childhood interest in biology would lead him to becoming an internationally-renowned expert in countering the environmental impact of major oil spills.
The now senior scientist with Fisheries and Oceans Canada has devoted most of his adult life looking for remedies to address contamination caused by oil spills in many of the world’s oceans and along the coastlines of its land masses.
While the traditional strategy of cleaning up oil spills has been based on the use of oil booms and skimmers to physically contain and recover oil on water, Lee, in a recent interview, noted those methods have limitations on spills that frequently impact shoreline environments.
His research some 30 years ago at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography (BIO) on the use of agriculture fertilizers to speed up the degradation of oil on beaches drew the attention of both oil spill response and government environment agencies internationally.
“In one summer, we were able to accomplish what nature would take 10 years to do, just by adding agriculture fertilizers,” he reported. “What most people don’t understand is that the presence of petroleum hydrocarbons is not new to the aquatic environment. They have been out there for eons and natural bacteria have adapted to consume them as a food source.
“There are so many natural oil seeps in the world that if it wasn’t for natural oil-eating microbes, we would be knee deep in oil. Our goal is to understand and help nature speed up the process.”
Lee’s expertise in oil spill countermeasures has been utilized by the oil spill response community following a number of major spill events around the world including the 1989 grounding of the Exxon Valdez off the coast Alaska, the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and, later that same year, the Kalamazoo River oil spill near Marshall, Michigan which released over a million gallons of diluted bitumen into the river.
As a child, Lee grew up in a family run south-end Halifax Chinese laundry. He fondly recalled spending his spare time fishing off the wharves of Halifax Harbour and the Purcell’s Landing jetty in Point Pleasant Park.
“I loved watching ships coming and going out of the harbour and became interested in the marine environment.” That interest, he says, grew during the hours he spent at the Nova Scotia Museum of Natural Science and while taking biology, his favourite course at Queen Elizabeth high school.
Lee graduated from Dalhousie University with a bachelor of science degree in marine biology. He then obtained masters of science and doctor of philosophy degrees in limnology (the study of inland waters) and microbial ecology from the University of Toronto.
While conducting his doctoral studies, Lee realized that biologists like himself, needed to expand on their knowledge in chemistry. So, he accepted a post-doctoral fellowship in ocean chemistry. That move in the early ‘80s led him into research at the Institute of Ocean Sciences in Sidney, B.C. with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) on the potential use and effects of chemical oil dispersants.
“I worked on petroleum hydrocarbons under a research program where we could actually add contaminants to large ocean enclosures within an inlet to study effects under realistic natural conditions “
In 1984, Lee returned home to Halifax where he worked on projects to assess the potential environmental impacts related to the expansion of the offshore oil and gas industry, including the oil spills. Five years later, he accepted a position as research scientist with the DFO at the Maurice Lamontagne Institute in Rimouski, Quebec, where he established a research group to study microbial transformations of contaminants in estuarine and coastal environments.
In 2001, he again returned to Halifax where he became the founding director for the Centre for Offshore Oil, Gas and Energy Research (COOGER) at BIO. That Centre conducted studies to support the development and revision of regulatory guidelines for Canada’s offshore oil industry.
In addition, he also worked on other environmental issues within Atlantic Canada such as contaminants in Sydney Harbour, the Sydney Tar Ponds and monitoring the lingering effects of the oil spill from the tanker Arrow that spilled 10,000 tonnes of bunker C oil into Nova Scotia’s Chedabucto Bay in 1970.
“A large part of my career has focused on understanding resilience, how nature cleans up oil spills, and how we could speed up that natural process. With scientists in the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Norway, and the Netherlands, we deliberately spilled oil on shorelines and conducted studies with an aim to develop internationally sanctioned operational guidelines for technologies like bio-remediation.
“The challenge for oil spill responders at sea is to keep the oil from coming into nearshore waters and the shoreline environment including our beaches and marshes,” Lee says. “The biological impacts and cost of cleaning up an oil spill is much greater onshore than offshore in deeper waters.
“The key thing is response time and bringing it under control as soon as possible. You really need the science on how to make the decisions to clean up an oil spill,” he said in noting every oil spill presents unique circumstances and challenges
Six years ago, Lee took an extended leave of absence to accept a position in Australia. He became the director of oceans and atmosphere for the Commonwealth Scientific Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), that country’s national science agency
While he was Down Under, the Royal Society of Canada appointed Lee to lead a panel of experts to review the current state of science relevant to potential oil spills into Canadian marine waters, lakes, waterways and wetlands.
Lee returned to Halifax two years ago as science leader for the Multi-Partner Research Initiative (MPRI). This program led by DFO under Canada’s Oceans Protection Plan focuses on the generation of scientific knowledge for the regulatory approval of Alternative Response Measures (ARMs).
The research network established under MPRI involving academia, industry and government scientists from Canada and abroad, will provide the essential information required for decision making to select the optimal oil spill response strategies.
Although the number oil spills from tankers at sea has declined dramatically because of tighter international safety protocols and the replacement of older ships with newer double-hulled ones, Lee says the risk of oil spills in Canada remains an issue.
He attributed this to a number of factors such as future offshore oil and gas activities, increases in oil transport by rail and pipelines, and the growth in marine traffic across the Arctic.