Oil-Spill Bioremediation, Using a Commercial Biopreparation “MicroBak” and a Consortium of Plasmid-Bearing Strains “V&O” with Associated Plants

Oil is the most widely distributed source of energy in the world and the largest-scaled environmental pollutant. Oil, oil products, and oil-containing industrial wastes pollution is ranked second place after radioactive pollution on account of their harmful action to ecosystems (Chernyakhovsky et al., 2004). Oil deposits in Russia are mainly located in the northern regions of the European part and Western Siberia. Therefore oil spills in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems occur primarily in cold climate regions. Approximately 8 to 9 billion tons per year of oil and oil products are discharged into the environment during extraction, transportation, processing and storing oil. Half of this amount goes into the soil and groundwater, and the other half contaminates surface water and air (Chernyakhovsky et al., 2004). In Western Siberia, in the areas of hydrocarbon accumulations, over 200 thousand hectares of land were polluted with oil reaching depths up to 10 cm in 1995. By 2003, the oil polluted area reached 700 thousand hectares.