A Richmond-based biochemistry consulting firm, CytoCulture, is in the running to provide a biochemical-based solution for cleaning oil off the shoreline. I ran into Randall von Wedel this evening at the Hotel Mac where he explained to me that his invention for using used cooking oil to remove bunker oil from the shoreline and enable it to be safely collected is far more effective than the tedious spatula and rags technique being used by highly-paid, out of town contractors.

He said government officials are reviewing his proposal along with that of another consultant, Blue Sky Bio-fuels of Oakland, and are expected to make a decision tonight.

CytoCulture is an environmental biotechnology firm based in Point Richmond providing bioremediation services and support. The company uses its own proprietary bioreactor technology and laboratory selected strains of aerobic bacteria to biodegrade a wide range of hydrocarbon contaminants in soil and groundwater. Teaming with affiliated environmental engineering firms, both in the United States and internationally, CytoCulture provides contract bioremediation services for a wide variety of clients and situations.

CytoCulture is consulting with the City of San Francisco in their cutting edge project to turn cooking grease into fuel for the City’s vehicles, as described in  S.F. program recycles restaurants' cooking oil for use as fuel , Charles Burress, San Francisco Chronicle, 11/20/07.

I understand what Randall is saying. I toured the Richmond shoreline last Saturday and observed 80 persons from out of state state working for O’Brien (See Firm handling oil spill cleanup is mostly unregulated, little known, Peter Fimrite, San Francisco Chronicle, 11/18/07). They were all suited out in rubber boots, Tyvek suits, hard hats and life jackets, lounging on rocks (rip-rap) between Marina Bay and Meeker Slough picking away sort of lackadaisically at spots of tar. At best, all they could remove were the larger chucks, leaving a coating on the rocks. The OBrien employees I talked to were, however, courteous and outgoing. One was from Houston; the other was from Boston. All these people were flown in here, put up at local hotel and motels, and paid well for doing about the lowest tech job one could imagine. Training for this task might have taken 10 minutes on a bad day. I couldn’t help but think how nice it would have been to have the same number of unemployed Richmond residents doing this job and putting away a little something for Thanksgiving and Christmas. This must be one of those fat government-related contracts like Halliburton.

Vegetable oil refined from SF restaurants may help bay cleanup

alt=KGO> By Amy Hollyfield

BERKELEY, Nov. 21, 2007 (KGO) - State and federal agencies are looking for a better way to respond the next oil spill, after the mess two weeks ago today in San Francisco bay. They're listening to a pitch from a local environmental biotechnology company today.

Beaches and shorelines were contaminated, on November 7th, after a container ship hit a support tower of the Bay Bridge and spilled 58,000 gallons of oil.

Just imagine spraying a chemical that had oil on it and waiting about 30 minutes and just wiping it off. It sounds easy enough, but the cleanup teams want to test it because they want to make sure they are not putting anything environmentally harmful into the area. They want to make this is going to be safe.

Right now they are using good old fashion elbow grease. They are using painted scrapers to get the oil off the rocks which takes a long time. So a company is claiming that their product would help them do this much quicker and they think they'll be able to get much more of the oil this way then if they are just sitting there scraping it.

CytoCulture is the company, they are located in Point Richmond, they think their product is environmentally friendly and ironically it's using oil to clean oil.

"It's actually a chemically refined product but it originally starts out as a vegetable oil. In this case we brought vegetable oil that has been recycled from San Francisco restaurants by the San Francisco Public Utility Commission and we have used that oil as our feed stock, we have chemically altered it," said Mike Ferry, CytoCulture researcher. They estimate that using this product would cost about $40,000 to get the coast cleaned up. It has been used before in California, but it's got to be tested by all of the agencies that are involved in this cleanup process. That is several state and federal agencies, so everybody wants to get on board to make sure that this would be the right products.

Why now - a few weeks later? They explained at the time they were dealing with the emergency that they didn't have time to deal with testing any products. They want to get the big chunks of oil contained and out of the bay the best way possible.

Now, they are dealing with the stuff that is harder to collect and they admit they need a chemical to help bring it up and help get it into a situation where they can get it out. They want to go ahead and started experimenting with this and test it. They are hoping to get answers later today.

Copyright 2007, ABC7/KGO-TV/DT.

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Decontamination effort winding down

Outpouring of help speeds cleanup of fouled beaches

Christopher Heredia, Chronicle Staff Writer

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Thanks to an overwhelming response from Good Samaritans after the San Francisco Bay oil spill, volunteers are needed this weekend to clean only a few beaches in Marin County, while expert decontamination crews work on harder-to-reach rocky areas around Angel Island and the East Bay waterfront, officials said Tuesday.

"Most of the cleanup is winding down," said Andrew Munoz, spokesman for the unified command overseeing response to the Nov. 7 spill of 58,000 gallons of bunker fuel when a container ship struck the base of a Bay Bridge tower. "Because of the outpouring of help from citizens, we've been able to clean the shorelines and now we don't need as many volunteers."

Marin County is the exception. Beaches including Agate, Rodeo, RCA, Muir, Seadrift and Brighton are showing signs of spilled oil, mainly in the form of tar balls that have washed ashore.

On Saturday, the Marin County Fire Department will hold a four-hour training session for volunteers interested in helping with beach cleanup. Officials warn that untrained people should not touch tar balls or other oily waste because of health hazards. Participants in Saturday's training will receive protective equipment and lessons in safely collecting waste.

Fire Captain Jason Weber said volunteers have been indispensable in the cleanup.

"Especially on the coast - Muir, Stinson and Bolinas beaches - volunteers have been a critical link setting up booms across Bolinas lagoon," Weber said. "Their local knowledge has been invaluable. This weekend, we plan to continue those efforts in West Marin."

Meanwhile, "hot shot" decontamination teams of private and government workers are paying visits to beaches hardest hit by the spill, while two Richmond and Oakland companies hope to get a piece of the cleanup action and do good by the environment.

Blue Sky Bio-fuels of Oakland and CytoCulture International of Point Richmond are shopping their cooking-oil based biosolvent to state and federal officials in hopes of efficiently cleaning shorelines.

"It's a happy circle," said CytoCulture founder Randall von Wedel, a research biochemist. "We're collecting used cooking oil from the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission and turning it into fuel and also are able to turn that same cooking oil into a solvent that may be used to combat shoreline spills."

Von Wedel's company and Blue Sky Bio-fuels plan a demonstration Wednesday for government officials responsible for overseeing the cleanup from the Cosco Busan spill.

The advantage of using the biosolvent, von Wedel said, is that unlike its chemical counterpart, it causes tar accumulating on rocky shorelines to float to the water's surface and be caught by absorbent booms. Chemical solvents, on the other hand, cause the waste oil to sink to the bottom of the bay, further threatening the environment and bay creatures.

"Everything added to the bay has an impact, and in large quantities this (biosolvent) would harm underwater mussels, oysters and other crustacea, but we apply it in a surgical fashion, spot by spot with hand sprayers," von Wedel said.

Nearly 1,100 workers have responded thus far to the oil spill. Officials said 19,466 gallons of the bunker fuel had been collected as of early Tuesday, and approximately 4,060 gallons had evaporated.

Officials have linked 1,682 bird deaths to the spill, while environmental experts say untold numbers of wildlife were sickened or killed. More than 680 birds have been cleaned, and 73 have been returned to the wild.

.E-mail Christopher Heredia at cheredia@sfchronicle.com.

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