Patent ID: 8403041

Claim:
A method comprising the steps of: a) treating a subterranean site in a zone adjacent to a water injection well with a detoxifying agent wherein, prior to the treatment, corrosion inhibitors and their degradation products have been adsorbed into the zone and have accumulated to concentrations that are toxic to microorganisms used in at least one of microbial enhanced oil recovery and bioremediation processes, and thereby have formed a toxic zone wherein the detoxifying agent is also a dispersing agent selected from the group consisting of hydrochloric acid, nitric acid, hydrofluoric acid, acetic acid and oxalic acid; and b) adding an inoculum of microorganisms to the water injection well wherein the microorganisms comprise one or more species of: Comamonas, Fusibacter, Marinobacterium, Petrotoga, Shewanella, Pseudomonas, Vibrio, Thauera , and Microbulbifer useful in microbial enhanced oil recovery; wherein the corrosion inhibitor is an inorganic compound selected from the group consisting of chlorine, hypochlorite, bromine, hypobromide, chlorine dioxide, hydrazine, anthraquinone, phosphates, and salts containing chrome, molybdenum, zinc, nitrates and sodium sulfite.