Effects of produced water on early life stages of a sea urchin: stage-specific responses and delayed expression

Abstract

From the Discussion: “Most produced waters do not appear to be acutely toxic…Results of our study support this notion for produced wter from oil fields in the Sant Barbara Channel; brief (10 minute) exposure of sea urchin gametes and prolonged (96 hr) exposure of zygotes did not result in increased mortality, even at moderately high concentrations of 1% produced water. We did, however, detect sublethal responses ot produced water at substantially lower levels: statistically significant responses of young purple sea urchinas were detected at produced water concentrations as low as 1 part per million…”