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Sean Gardner / Reuters
A worker takes soil samples on an island in Barataria Bay to determine if the island needs to be cleaned again near Myrtle Grove, La., on March 31. Oil fouled Louisiana's coast in the wake of the wake of the Deepwater Horizon drilling-rig explosion on April 20 last year.
One year ago this week, an oil-rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico touched off a deep-sea leak amounting to 2.5 million gallons of Louisiana light crude every day for months. In all, nearly 207 million gallons (4.9 million barrels) of oil are thought to have gushed from the leak, along with huge volumes of methane. So what's happened to all those petrochemicals over the past year? The answer is surprisingly complex and contentious.
Or maybe it shouldn't be so surprising. After all, the task requires figuring out what effect Mother Nature and millions of gallons of dispersants had on the plumes of oil and gas, as much as a mile beneath the sea's surface. What's more, the question carries policy implications: BP and the other companies that operated the well would have an interest in downplaying the spill's long-term legacy, while that's exactly the issue that BP's critics want to highlight.
The legal implications could also be huge. Scientists already are finding that their studies are being impeded by civil and criminal investigations into the spill and its effect. For instance, researchers looking into a spate of dolphin deaths that may be linked to oil-fouled seas were told by the National Marine Fisheries Service to keep mum about their findings. "Because of the seriousness of the legal case, no data or findings may be released, presented or discussed outside the UME [unusual mortality event] investigative team without prior approval," the agency told scientists in a letter.
Even the federal government's assessment of what happened to the oil, released last August and updated in November, has been widely criticized by experts who think it downplays the seriousness of the spill's impact. Georgia Tech biologist Joseph Montoya complained last year that the federal government's estimates "always seemed to be biased to the best case."
But here are a few statements that everyone can agree with: Some of the oil evaporated, some was gobbled up by microbes, some was burned, some washed up onto shore, some is still washing up as tar balls, some was dispersed in the sea, and some settled to the bottom of the ocean.
Most researchers also agree that the spill was a catastrophe, no matter how the percentages for those various categories add up. "This was an ecological disaster, no doubt about it," Terry Hazen, a microbial ecologist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, told me.
Can Mother Nature clean it up?
A study led by Hazen and published in the journal Science last August lines up on one side of the oil-spill controversy: He and his colleagues reported that a newly identified bacterial strain was digesting the oil at a faster-than-expected rate. "We took 170 samples from where the plume was and couldn't detect any oil in the water column," Hazen said. The researchers also saw no sign of oxygen depletion, which often arises as the result of microbial blooms.
Hazen said only 6 percent of his team's deep-sea core samples contained oil contamination that could be associated with the spill. Additional oil washed up on shorelines and sank into the soil, Hazen said, but he said it may be riskier to do "aggressive treatment" of that soil than to leave it alone.
"Nature does a pretty good job of cleaning herself up, and we shouldn't be mucking things up unless we know what we're doing," Hazen said.
He said that 400,000 barrels' worth of oil (1.7 million gallons) leaks into the Gulf of Mexico from natural seeps every year, and that the Gulf's ecosystem has evolved to handle such natural contamination. "This has been going on for millions of years, literally," he said. "The bacteria that degrade oil are naturally adapted to degrade this oil. They do it quite well."
Mucked up at the bottom of the sea
Studies conducted by the University of Georgia's Samantha Joye and her colleagues tell a different tale: During diving expeditions on the Alvin submersible vessel, they found that areas of the seafloor around the spill site were covered with an oily muck and littered with dead organisms.
So how does Joye answer the "where's the oil" question? "A lot of it's on the bottom, and it's on the bottom all over the place," she told me. "The question is, how long does it stay on the bottom?"
Joye said her findings don't really contradict Hazen's. She stressed that the results from his team on microbial digestion were based on the degradation of a particular component of the oil known as alkane, in a particular zone of the Gulf waters. "His results were based on the deep-water plume, and some people have extrapolated that to the entire oil spill," she said. "And I think that's inappropriate."
She said the Deepwater Horizon blowout of 60,000 barrels a day dwarfed the natural seepage of 500 to 1,000 barrels a day, and doubted that "magic microbes" could have made much of a dent in last year's spillage.
Hazen acknowledged that the area around the spill site is all mucked up, but says his analysis of core samples led him to a different conclusion. He pointed out that during one phase of the response to the spill, millions of gallons of heavy drilling mud were pumped down into the well in an unsuccessful attempt to perform a "top kill" and stop the leak.
"We can see the oil there, but we can also see aluminates and silicates and clay," he told me. "What we're seeing in that layer close to the wellhead is oil that was trapped in the drilling mud."
The bottom line
For now, the best that Hazen, Joye and other researchers can do is agree with the federal government's estimate that roughly a quarter of the oil that leaked from the Deepwater Horizon well was captured or burned at the surface, and then keep trying to track down what happened to the other three-quarters. The federal estimate suggests that a little more than half of the oil has dispersed, evaporated or dissolved. That would leave a little less than a quarter as "residual" oil — that is, oil that looks like oil.
Joye thinks the federal estimate is too optimistic. "The majority of that stuff is still in the system and on the seabed," she said. But gathering the evidence to back up that view will take months or years — which is generally the way it works in science, especially when what you're studying is a mile deep.
"We have to evaluate and very carefully monitor the system to see how long it takes to recover," Joye told me, "because I don't think we can even begin to predict the recovery trajectory at this point."
How quickly will the Gulf recover? What do you think? Feel free to weigh in below with your comments as well as your pointers to other perspectives.
Extra credit: Last August's report from the U.S. Geological Survey and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimated that nearly 207 million gallons of oil leaked from the broken well, with nearly 35 million gallons' worth collected by a temporary containment cap. That implies that a little more than 172 million gallons actually leaked into the Gulf. Caveat: The federal report says there's a 10 percent uncertainty factor to its numbers, and as I've tried to make clear above, some researchers don't trust the federal figures.
More about the Gulf spill anniversary:
- A year on, Gulf still grapples with oil spill
- Survey suggests Gulf is nearly back to normal
- Interactive: Sizing up the spill's impact
- Along the Gulf, the spill defines a state of mind
- Interactive: The physics of oil spills
- The latest news and videos about the oil spill
Join the Cosmic Log community by clicking the "like" button on our Facebook page or by following msnbc.com science editor Alan Boyle as b0yle on Twitter. To learn more about my book on Pluto and the search for planets, check out the website for "The Case for Pluto."
Leave a Comment:
With all the some here, some there, some did this, some did that, sounds like nobody know what happened to all the oil, but they are going to guess and try to scare the pants off us. Science??? I don't think so.
It's the first rule of anything...Media, Eco-terrorist, enviro-scientists, polticians have one and only one goal...To Make Money...and they make a lot more money, if they can scare the masses into believing everything is the end of the world, if they dont get money
One year later, where are the 11 people who died in this disaster? How much sea life was destroyed and is still being destroyed by it? How much oil-contaminated seafood is being sold and consumed by American people? This disaster will have implications for years, decades, to come.
Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together - mass hysteria.
-Peter Venkman
You've got a whole Gulf region knowing there is a big $20 billion bucket of money and people are crawling out of the woodwork to get their hands on it. Amazing the number of applications for fishing licenses that were applied for "after" the oil spill started. 2200 from the records. Funny bedfellows: Attorneys, criminal Gulf Coast residents, environmentalists, politicians, etc... Wait! My mistake. I should have said "The Usual Suspects."
when the next hurricane comes thru it will look like someone thru oil into a fan, people that settle now will regret it, I understand they need money now. But I beleive when a hurricane comes thru it will catch up the now settled oil laying quietly in low pocket and re-broadcast it. I tried to submitt a way to stop this well head to Bp, it would have work if had I the resoarses to build the insert. it would also be in the ready for any future well head failures.
Nature is amazing. There are microbes on this planet that can live just about anywhere, digesting just as varied a medium.
I find it amuzing that scientists cannot diverge their findings due to all the lawsuits hahaha.
It's Obama's fault, he hates people who drive cars. I heard he clubs baby seals too.
In response to Dana C, while I hate to get personal, I have serious doubts to your abillities and education when you cannot even use proper spelling (resources) and grammar.
"....BP and the other companies that operated the well would have an interest in downplaying the spill's long-term legacy, while that's exactly the issue that BP's critics want to highlight." Living down here, and reading and seeing all the LAWYERS involved, I must agree with Mr.PheaNiques and Svenolafson. It's not a case of "Follow the money" as much as "Backtrack the lawyers and lawsuits."
The first drilling permit after the spill was given to BP (could BP be a presidential favorite?) and although this administration claims there's no more moratorium on drilling very few permits have come through since the spill.
OklahomaMom, did you miss the thru for through and the thru for threw or were you just being kind?
In defense of Dana C, a person's creative mind is separate from their literary mind so he/she could very well have had a great idea but lacked the ability to present it. Just saying.
LOL hoocow.
You right wing ditto heads eat plenty of oysters off the coast now and don't forget, tobacco is harmless....so, light up, smoke more.
Me? I'm headed away from the Gulf coast near the pan handle.
Remember when the tobacco folks and the Republicans tried to convince us all that second hand smoke was not dangerous or that tobacco itslef, nicotine, was not addictive?
Remember when the Republicans tried to tell us all that seat belts were useless, air bags too?
Rush, today, will tell you asbestos particles are not harmful.
Coal dust either.
So, hahaha, you righties enjoy the corexit stew down there...it will be a race..leukemia or lung cancer for the righties or liver cancer from that case of beer daily...Joe Six Packs God bless their stupid heads.lol.
I hate when people who know nothing about environmental science try to analyze what happened there. Science is never 100% and is willing to flex with new information because that is the basis of what new discovery is; accepting new data and adjusting a previous belief, what many people are not willing to do and live in ignorance. Perhaps you should spend 4-7 years getting a degree in ecology or environmental study before making an uninformed statement about it. Why would the scientists, who have no chance of achieving any money for their opinions, make any statement at all if it were not what they believe unless they work for BP ? The only people who stand to make money at all in this situation are BP and government. So, perhaps you should analyze who has a motive and who does not and bias your opinion differently but then again that is how a scientific mind works and you will probably not adjust your opinions. After all, you DO have a bias against scientists because they are willing to change their opinion based on new information and not dig a hole and never come out.
Oh yea, Belk and Mr Phea. Who do you guys work for? Don't answer that because if you work for the the oil industry as part of their PR crew you will lie anyway. If you aren't a big oil PR pig then you both are idiots who don't live on the gulf coast.
The heritage and culture here on the Gulf Coast has taken an azz beating from this crime! It was a crime because they weren't being safe as they are required to be. They should have to pay 40 billion and some people should go to prison for murder!
If I walk on the beach of Dauphin Island TODAY I can easily find oil in the sand. If I walk on Orange Beach or Gulf Shores TODAY I can find tar balls rolling in the surf, you stupid a-holes! It's ruined! and I don't need a scientist to tell me that.
These scientists are ABSOLUTELY CORRECT in their assessments and BP deserves to get kicked in the crotch as often as possible for their horrible lack of consideration of the local ecology and cultures that they are kicking in the crotch every single day, you ignorant, insensitive 8astards...
Ummm, no. Many scientists make plenty of money based on their opinions. I guess you've never heard of research grants. And surely you've heard of bias among scientists? There is plenty to be had. Many of them have an agenda and will not change their mind about it, period. Too many scientists do NOT follow the scientific method these days.
You haven't kept up with who is "making money" in this sad case either. BP is the one paying Billions of dollars, much of it being fraudulently taken by the typical shysters and even parish governments in Louisiana. Do a little reading before you post.
Is that what you did?
In a few years it won't matter and no one will care.
Don't forget all the oil that went inland. The crap that they put into landfills. Before The People knew what they were up to, they had already dumped quiet a bit into the landfills until people said woe on that crap. Not in our backyards. Areas that consumers are concerned that their environment could be a hazardous toward their water, their crop stability and their livestock that is part of our foodchain.
Dilution is the solution to pollution.
Randi is a girl,
Should read Randi is naive. Don't you think there's a oil tanker load of lawyers for 10 oil tanker loads of plaintiffs, real or fake, steaming towards the Gulf or already anchored there waiting for their cut of the $20 billion bonanza?
So the scientist who is says no big deal is probably lying because he is getting paid by big oil, the scientist who says worst disaster ever is lying because there grants are tied to this being a big problem, and then you will get the government report which again has agenda politics written all over it. The truth is we don't know the true impact or lack there of and probably never will. We probably aren't smart enough to find out, only smart enough to take samples and draw conclusions that are basically educated guesses at best, and everyone who is looking into it has to much at stake to tell the truth, so we all just get to listen to the side that furthers our own agenda and nothing will come of it. Business as usual in America, be sure to try and score political points and some easy cash to make sure we cover all the bases.
M. Fisher
Heritage and culture? What does that even mean? How did an oil spill change your heritage and culture? I can see how the spill can hurt economically (fishing, oil drilling, Tourism) but wouldn't your heritage be the same?
I'm sure there is oil in the sands and tar balls washing ashore but the question still remains how is the ocean doing? Is the fishing worse, the same as before? Are the the fish safe to eat? Has tourism come back to normal levels? Is it safe to go swimming in the ocean? If I had visted in 2006 and came back today would I notice huge changes because of the oil spill?
The government is NOT for the people and by the people. The government exists as an insulating layer between the haves and the have nots. The have nots steal a chicken and go directly to jail. He haves can steal, kill, manipulate and anything else they wish and they get protected by the government. Bah! The government must only appear to be in favor of the people. In reality they are not. They represent corporate interests and protect the elite and captains behind the se corporations.
Nature can't keep up with the corporate polluters.
It's all very simple. Obama and his administration were on the ball on day one. They drank the oil. Explains why they are so toxic!
OklahomaMom
"In response to Dana C, while I hate to get personal, I have serious doubts to your abillities and education when you cannot even use proper spelling (resources) and grammar".
You hate to get personal but you do it anyway! If you hate something so badly than why would you do it? You insult a person, add nothing to the thread and have no idea that many people who invented the things you use today did not finish high school and never mind college for some of them. If you just have to be a hater and a hater I know you are, just hate on yourself. Your not nice and what is really ironic, is you are a mom and probably teaching the same hater mentality to your kid or kids. Fascinating!
Kornfed....So I guess mankind has to learn to survive on these microbes, because the other sea life is being destroyed. Can't wait for those microbe and chips sandwiches at McDonalds. How about some microbes on the half shell, or a microbe cocktail before dinner ? Tourist industry should do well taking people out on microbe watching cruises and for the sportsman in all of us, a whole new set of microbe fishing records is just waiting to be made, hope they look good on a wall mount ! Marine life as we know it has been decimated. I fear the long term effects of this spill may deprive our grandchildren of ever seeing dolphin play in the Gulf, whales breach, and it could be the final step in the destruction of bluefin tuna fishery ( Gulf is one of only two places in the world where they spawn, the other is Mediterranean with its own oil pollution problems).
Mmmm... Waterworld food. Yummy. We just buried grandma. Pass me some more of that green slop.
I'm so mad . At 3:00 AM this morrning , I was talking to one of my best friends . He was coming out of Mississippi , where he had stopped to visit his sister . She is going through chemotherapy .
He was telling me about a fishing trip he is going on Friday . He lives in Mobile , Al .He and some of his friends are going to go 40 miles out in the gulf to fish . I'm trying to tell him they don't need to be out on the water , and they don't need to be eating the fish out of the gulf . He says I read to much .He says I need to have a drink and watch a movie .
Will chemotherapy be able to save him , when the microbes do what they might do ?
Will I have to keep my mouth shut two , three years from now , at his funeral ? Not say I read to much , and I warned him .
We live 300 miles north of the gulf and I'm hearing so many people with a small cough . No big deal now . Just every now and then , clear their throat . This article is telling us ,it's been a year now . Two - three weeks after this started . I was saying this was going to kill thousands . Laugh at me if you must . I hope I'm very wrong .
You make light of the microbes . How many microbes do I breath in with each breath ?
I'm very mad , B P has killed me . I hope they haven't killed you also .
RON
BP just announced their profits for thios quarter. A hefty 6+ billion, not to bad for a company that has caused this much harm. All BP products and its subsidiaries should be banned from the US. This might make them take the clean-up seriously. Of course this would require our government to care about the people they supposedly represent. Let's be real, our politicians work for only one reason...themselves, so that option will never happen.
The American people will never be told the whole truth on this. And BP will get huge tax breaks here. I feel sorry for the people who are directly affected. There is no way all the oil is gone. And no one can say that having all that oil left over won't cause issues with the wildlife.
prove it.
kristian
You're right Americans will never be told the whole truth about anything...but it's people like you that I feel sorry for...hook line and sinker
The oil is still in the ocean, some on the bottom, some on top, and some in the middle. It's still washing up on beaches.
oil, it's natural
So, mmac & MR. PheaNiques, you two simply believe what the big corporations tell you..."hook line and sinker?" To what end?
At what point do you realize that corporations and the wealthy elite are not all good people? They have their fair share of bad people. Success does NOT make a person Good or Bad. Just look at what the Bad Percentage are convicted of and it is clear. The sad part is that they get minimal to no punishment, pay fines and attorneys' fees, and then receive Golden Parachutes when they Fail Miserably...so the company can cancel their contracts.
As far as the Obama Administration, they are most certainly lying and withholding facts...as are the bulk of D.C. politicians. Regardless of their party affiliation, the politicians in D.C. are absolutely corrupt because the system is distorted beyond recognition. And the few that tell the truth are ostracized and / or voted out of office.
Throw EVERYONE of them out and start fresh. Oh, and stop worrying about the Rich Man, he'll do just fine. The Middle Class and Seniors need to look out for themselves.
So leanderm, "oil it's natural." Then we need not worry going forward with these and other spills. After all, All of this is "natural." EVERYTHING we Do and Use comes from Earth, so, by your definition, it is ALL natural. Like Nuclear Waste. So, let's just dump Nuclear Waste, Trash, Oil, Plastics (Made Of Oil), etc. in our Vast Oceans. They can take it and besides, it's all just natural.
Oil within Earth is obviously 'natural.' But it is Extracted by Human Engineering, making it 'unnatural' to the surrounding environment. We need energy, and unfortunately at the moment, we must continue to use Oil. Let's just do our 'Best' to do it well and WHEN we mess up, let's clean it up and inform people of the Real Effects & Cautions to take going forward.
Wasn't it Science and Reasoning that made our country what it is today? The country that created so many Superior Defense Weapons, sent us into Space, and put us on the Moon First?
Wow we have the oil company geeks, clicking away at the BP geekdome, spewing muck from the bowels of their bought and paid for souls.
Pheanique, mmac... You want proof? Google search BP pays for oilspill with tax breaks, and come back here and tell us we all bit the hook! The taxpayer paid for the 20 billion dollar oil fund...
What do you think happens to oil when it naturally is released into water?
It floats!
What happens to oil when it is mixed with dispersant?
It sinks!
The truth is simply this. The Florida tourist coast was the battlefield. BP didnt give two turds what happened to our food supply as long as oil and tarballs werent floating up on those pristine beaches.
What happened when the oil was on CNN? BP's stock price went down. Why do you think the federal government has a gag order on findings from the Gulf? Because its bad for BP's stock price.
Who was one of Obama's biggest contributors during his senate years? BP!
Do you want more proof? We can head down to the coast and talk to the shrimpers and oyster catchers. But you have to wear the "I LOVE BP" placard!
You Leftists are hilarious. You come across that this is such a horrendous catastrophe all the while gleefully giggling that you can't believe your good fortune. Ya'll should just move on down to South America way. You can all get naked and run around the jungle. Heck you can even protect the Amazon rain forest while you're down there. Good luck to you all.
Don't feel sorry for me at all. I have a great life. You must be a oil person (evil lobbyist). Corporations are good for this country and bad for this country. They do provide jobs, but are allowed to screw people at every turn possible. Companies and government do not mix. No matter how big, there are laws that should not be broken. You can not bend laws when you see fit or a corporation tells you it is ok. Be a leader and not a follower.
mmac- are you really that ignorant to think that millions of gallons of oil can not have any ill affect on ecosystems and wildlife. I would be astonished to think there was someone that stupid out there. And someone so stupid as to believe a corporation would tell you the truth.
Sven, mmac, phean,
There are leftists and then there are people who are not ignorant enough to believe that corporations and the government have our best interests at heart.
Please learn to make the distinction.
And please.... PLEASE.... bring up our oil dependence and how pinko leftists dont get it.
I have no problem having a battle of wits with the unarmed.
America Today,
OK Antny, Give up your computer, you car, your bike, your clothes, everything you own that has a spec of petrochemical in it. Now take you hemp wearing ass out to the wilderness and "attempt" to survive. That's a good boy.
Geeze! What are you, 8? Here's one you may not have heard. I know you are but what am I? Oh and this oldie but goodie. I'm rubber you're glue. Whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you.... Kids these days.
"...so, by your definition, it is ALL natural. Like Nuclear Waste. So, let's just dump Nuclear Waste, Trash, Oil, Plastics (Made Of Oil), etc. in our Vast Oceans. They can take it and besides, it's all just natural." From what bodily orificedid you pull this bit of logical thinking? Because, YES, oil has leaked naturally for millennium. Radioactive waste in millions of tons / gallons / (pick your level of contaminant)? Well, historically, not so much. Please drop your political views and recheck your historical and scientific facts. For example, the last major oil well leak in the gulf, similar leaks since then worldwide, containment and cleanup procedures used in the interim. For a start. And nothing as stupid as "let's just dump Nuclear Waste....." Only a flamer would think of saying the equivalent of "just let it go. We can always build a new Chernobyl. And if something goes wrong, well, it is the Ukraine, Fly-Over Country."
Kristian113
It's not that it doesn't have an impact. The impact is immediate and that's why you find what you can and clean it up.
What you have to realize is nature reclaims the oil as well. Parts of the ocean have natural oil seepage and some marine microorganisms feed on oil. I am not sure if you know but the form of oil in the ground known as crude is made by nature. It's noting more than decayed plants, animals and organisms.
Today's decaying animals, plants, and organisms are Earths future oil. Will we eventually run out? Probably but oil will come back millions of years from now given the right conditions.
A coworker of mine went fishing off of Ft Lauderdale last week, caught a 30 lb Cobia, cleaned it, and found oil in its guts.
It IS still out there.
I am sure there is some out there. Cobia are voracious eaters if oil was in the guts it probably ate a fish that contained oil. How did the gills look? That will tell you if it has had recent contact with oil.
I did give up my car, 20 years ago.
Thats said, theres no need to stop using Oil products completely. What we do need is responsible industry that puts the environment ahead of profits. Especially in other parts of the world where they dont think people are watching. Like in Africa and Indonesia. If that means higher prices and inconvenience, so be it. We have alternatives that can do some of the jobs that oil does now. And even if they are not as good at the job, we need to start moving to them anyway.
The environment needs to be at the top of the list of concerns, not the bottom. Profits should be at the bottom. Considering the billions the industry makes, they can afford it.
I wasn't with him. He said he just cleaned it out and then smoked the fish.
I didn't say he was too bright, just a sometime coworker. I did not ask if he had checked the gills, nor if he had some to share!
Oil is still having a impact on wildlife and the ecosystem. A little drops of oil will not cause issues, but when it sits on the bottom in large areas that area is going to have problems. The grass lands and swamp areas are not in constant movement. How can any plant life grow under 3 inches of oil? Come on common sense.
But one error is that the BP higher ups are getting millions is bonus money. Really? That money should be given to the people of the Gulf. BP shorted that area by saying it is only going to pay this certain amount.
Transocean was the one handing out safety bonuses, but I do believe they rescinded them after the public outcry.
But you just know BP, Haliburton,a nd Transocean execs still got huge compensation for 'a job well done'.
Kristian113,
The grasslands and swamps of the gulf coast are indeed constantly moving. They are also constantly disappearing do to storms and normal tidal currents. The coastal swamp area recedes at a rate of a few hundred yards a year. That has nothing to do with humans by the way. It sounds like you are very skeptical that humans want to do the right thing. I disagree thousands of people did what they could to clean up the oil. Have a little faith in nature. It will be fine.
The earth has recovered from disasters much larger than humans could ever conceive. Two examples are meteor strikes and super volcanoes. Both are responsible for far greater pollution than we could ever produce. Look at the earth today, people were not around to clean those disasters up yet hardly any evidence is found and life goes on.
I agree energy should not be controlled by corporations because they do worry about profits. The problem is people who work for corporations have to worry about profits. I don't blame them for that. If there are no profits the people who work for that company have no job. Energy should be run by the nation. I know it sounds a little socialist but I believe it would reduce the cost of energy. The next step would be to take energy commodities off the market so speculation does not drive pricing anymore.
Bobby Jones Bia
Pack you a lunch , grab you a chair and go down to the grasslands and the swamps you speak of . Sit where and watch nature heal itself . Breath in the microbes in the air . They might take two or three years , to kill you .
Don't worry nature will clean this up . You'll be worm food . And B P will still be rich .
I am going to the gulf I leave Thursday morning. Not scared or worried either. To be honest the pesticides,preservatives and additives in our food worry me more than the oil spill. Like I said crude oil is natural, more natural then the food most of us eat.
I do see that people tried to help clean up. Did BP and Transocean do all it could do. No. There are areas that just sit. There is no one on this earth that is going to tell me that the areas with large fields of oil on the ocean floor is going to be ok. That there is nothing wrong. Yes nature changes and heals itself, but this is not going to go away by just a rainfall. All the wildlife and ocean creatures are part of the food chain. And I can not believe how many people will come out after getting paid to say It will be ok.
Corporations are allowed to pollute. Some that put off enough toxins are told it is ok by our government.WHY? Because of campaign cash. I am glad I do not work for any of these companies. BP and Tansocean need to fork up more money and have people under the water and on land cleaning up EVERYTHING. And take care of the people they hurt by using unreliable and cheap equiptment.
To Oklahoma mom, don't forget through, believe and submit as well. Unfortunately,our schools have de-emphasized spelling because all of our computers and gadgets can do it for us. You may ask how I know this...Well, I'm a teacher. 4th grade to be exact and I have several of my highest level thinkers who failed the state writing work sample because they can't spell and are unwilling (I use this term instead of LAZY) to look the words up in the dictionary.
Is the obama administration lying or is it the case that drilling in the gulf is not harmful to the environment and that would mean the environmentalists are lying?
Every extraction of any natural resource is harmful to the environment. It doesn't matter if it is oil, gas, coal or other mineral used for non-energy industries. That is just life unless you want to live in a cave with a solar panel - oh by the way the lines needed to send to power from those panels need resources that need to come out of the earth. It is the world we live in and there isn't many options if you want a roof over your head, food on your table and the ability to have transportation.
humans breathing causes global warming.
And cows breaking wind.
Look the same thing can be said for BP. How do you expect them to clean up the mess when there is such disagreement on how much of the mess is left. Do not get me wrong I am not a BP fan here but I just like reality. I was at a neighbors house one day and her kid spilled something. She told him to clean it up. He told her define clean. Because this situation has many ramifications like law suits and potential payoffs for the disaster one at this point can point to asking the same question. Define clean. Who can do that? Now ask yourself is it BP's fault if they do not have marching orders?
eco babble
Our government lies to us? I cannot believe this, and that they even get the researchers to lie and skew their research. My oh my.
All of this in one little article and no mention of the untold tons of the dispersant Corexit 9500 that was dumped into our Gulf.
Oil floats. Could it be this toxic dispersant that has caused it to sit on the bottom of our Gulf?
What about the organisms that eat the oil. Could this cause an explosion in their population, which could also have an environmental impact that no one is considering?
Yes it will have an evironmental impact...They will become a larger portion of the first link in the food chain
I wouldn't look for advice on these blogs, wtf
Hazen said that the fish catch was higher after the fishing ban was lifted, but it's hard to link that specifically to any change in the food chain. It may have been simply a result of the ban. The issue of potentially tainted seafood is something I didn't address in this story ... The federal government says its testing has found that the seafood is safe, while activist groups say that there is a low level of contamination they're concerned about (even though it's way below standards). Here's a story about that:
http://www.npr.org/2011/04/14/135380759/gulf-seafood-deemed-safe-but-still-under-scrutiny
Here is a local article that may be of interest.
http://www.wafb.com/Global/story.asp?S=14463651
Basically they all agree.....we just don't know how bad it is or isn't and probably won't for a few years. You can say...we don't see any oil....but that doesn't mean it's completely gone. I am a LA resident and have a camp on Grand Isle....if you watched any of the coverage you saw Grand Isle. There are tarballs on the beach....and I had black spots on the bottoms of my feet after walking on it....but even the old timers who have lived there 40 years or more will tell you that isn't unusual. There is no way to tell if that's just the normal tar balls or if they are BP induced tar balls by looking at them....they leave of their corporate logo. :) I hope we've seen the end of it's effects....but I'm not holding my breath. There was a story on the news here this morning that areas of oyster beds weren't producing like previous years....even with the fishing shut down for so many months. But they are the ocean's pool filter so they would suck up the worst of it. We'll see in a few years I think.
Have to say this was a pretty good article Alan. Dead center and reported the facts. This is the way reporting should be done from both sides of the political spectrum.
Thanks!
During World War 11, thousands of ships where torpedoed and lost in the Atlantic. By all accounts the Atlantic should have been an ocean of oil so where did all the oil from the sunken ships go to?
With ever issue, those investigating have their own agenda. So they come with a certain bias which can be as simple as "mother nature knows best", to "humans know best". Some groups like to jump into the fray without much data supporting their claims because scary news sells. Some prefer to squash scary news because of the consequences. So if you tell people that the fish are contaminated in some form or another, the fishing industry will suffer he more. So the fishing industry will want to put the best spin on this as possible. It is only natural. The oil companies of course just want to put this behind them and get back to business and bring back the jobs. There is no end to the personal agendas out there.
I think we can all agree that the spill after the containment did fall off the radar of the media very quickly because there wasn't much to report on. The oil for the most part is not within sight of the human eye. It is hard to make a bogey man story when the culprit has disappeared.
Me, I have personally witnessed mother nature taking care of things. I am in awe. In this case oil, which is NOT man made, but in fact a part of the ecosystem may have been relatively easy for nature to deal with even in larger quantities.
Crude oil is Carbon and Hydrogen. Two of the most common elements in the universe. It was formed over billions of years by dead and decaying animals, plants and organisms. It is no surprise that nature would reclaim oil. It made oil in the first place.
Like you said everyone has their own agenda, unfortunately most people are not willing to do the research and find the truth.
Well,stated opinion there. Though an oppinion only; yet my pick for the best of the day! Not precicely what I was going to note but fairly close. Still all these comments do not change, nor help the situation any. Get out of your SUV and walk! Ride your bike to work refute the "need for oil" ideology that is drumed into your head as you sit meekly on your couch..."America needs more oil!" And there you all sit, trapped by the blue glare of the machine which rules you! Think of that!
So where is the oil?
That is very easy to say if you live close to work. After being laid off after the BP spill.....I worked for an engineering company on a BP project....I ended up having to take a job twice as far away from home. By interstate it is 60 miles round trip.....if I were to ride my bike to work...seeing as they aren't allowed on interstates...I'd be looking at around a 100 mile round trip...at least. Others I worked with who were also laid off are now working over 100 miles away....so your ideology isn't a one size fits all. Not to mention...anyone who would ride bike in rush hour traffic around here has to have a death wish.
James Belk,
The thing about it that should be scaring the pants off of you is 'that we don't know'. Science is the method we are using to try and find out where the oil went, and what impact it is having and might continue to have on the ecosystem. Not knowing where 30 or 40 million gallons of a toxic carcinogenic goop has gone off to is SCARY, doing the research to find out where it has gone off to is SCIENCE. I know so.
Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together - mass hysteria.
-Peter Venkman
Every time I read this I crack up. I can hear him saying it.
What amazes me is how this important event became backpage news so quickly. If Bush were still President this story would have been front page news for the remainder of his term.
That's because Bush is , was, and shall forever be an idiot!
This is OBAMA's fault, just like poor planning and cleanup from hurricane Katrina was GW Bush's fault,, isn't that what the libs said??? Oh that's right, Obama had nothing to do with BP,,, ooops, OBAMA was the largest recipient of BP election funds to any US politician,, where is the liberal outcry for his impeachment, he is obviously in the pocket of BP??? -you libtards are such hypocrites and delusional liars.
So, now we're saying Mother Nature's job is to clean up our messes? Oh, she'll do the job all right. It might take a hundred thousand years, but she'll get it done. Humanity just seems like ungrateful kids to the Earth sometimes.
As per the Persian Gulf after the first Gulf war, remember all those burning wells pumping out heavy crude?
All the doomers saying it will take a lifetime to clean up?
In less than 2 years the Persian Gulf was back to it's clear self, believe me the states bordering the Persian Gulf didn't wail & and wring their hands, they did some clean up & allowed Ms Nature do her best.
can we say, drill baby drill. The environmentalist's argument has been proven false.
mmac,
If you knew what you were talking about you would suprise everyone. If you want readers to respect your post you may try FACTS. Anyone who is even half-way intelligent knows that we are slowly destroying the environment we live in. Perhaps you are from Mars and are not affected by the damage being done to planet Earth!
I am gonna have to agree with the scientific researchers on this majorly. I am a 19 year old from Alabama in the U.S. Air Force, and i know for a fact the goverment takes things like this too lightly and I have no trust in our goverment! I can tell you just from looking back at the histaory of major incidents like this that the goverments plan is to get people to forget about the spill and the oil. But this is something the people of the Gulf wont do! Anyone who as ever been near the Gulf of Mexico knows the beauty of those beaches. And the way they were destroyed will have people furious at BP for years to come. The goverment is too concerned with making bigger better planes than saving our economy. The problem is we are the world's greatest Air Force and when someone makes a knock off of one of our jets the military thinks they need to make on better, the military is a one upper and it needs to be stopped so we casn save the economy. Personally if we would stop pissing other countries off and get our nose out of countries where they wouldnt belong we might have enough money to save the economy. But the goverment keeps trying to sweep it under the rug and the people of the Gulf are gonna fight them tooth and nail this time. Its time the goverment mans up and admits to having not taking this seriously. But instead they are gonna keep acting like it is nothing till we end up like the movie The Day After Tomorrow.
In a stunning AP story, it has been learned that the Bush Administration cited the Deep Water Horizon (The oil rig that sank after an oil well it dug in the Gulf of Mexico exploded) for six safety violations in less than five years beginning in 2002, but the Obama Administration gave it a safety award last year.
mmac,
Bull Sh*t!
After the 3 million barrel oil spill in 1979 from the Ixtoc 1 well, scientists noted that the ecosystem in the Gulf had returned to a near normal state in a very short period of time considering the devastation that took place over the 10 month blowout.
Here is more information on the Ixtoc 1 spill:
http://viableopposition.blogspot.com/2010/07/ixtoc-1-no-longer-biggest-blowout-in.html
Just wait until after the first major hurricane hits the gulf states. The location of all the dispersed, sunken oil will be a mystery no more.
I hope you're not right.....but I just don't know. Hoping for no hurricanes at all this season.
The Federal estimate is just that ... an estimate. Why people gotta create a conspiracy about that, I don't know. There is no incentive for the Fed Gov to cover up what happened; they didn't create this disaster.
eco terrorists, should be a law against these people spreading fear with lies
It's laying on a 2 mile by 4 mile stretch of underwater canyon in a big pile of goo.
Thanks nobama for the $4 gas
Clearly, the hyperbole of last summer, when this spill was routinely referred to as the "worst environmental accident in history", has been shown to be overblown. In a country that has experienced the Dust Bowl, where a vast area of the Gulf routinely becomes a dead zone every summer due to agricultural run-off, where the Colorado river no longer reaches the sea, etc..... one has to view this spill as one bad thing among many, but certainly not the worst. This does not even consider the prospects for anthropogenic global warming, which happens slowly and does not offer the TV-ready camera images that the Macondo well offered up. As a culture, we are good at getting excited over something that offers dramatic footage at 6:00, not so good at sustaining attention.
Oddly, a lot of the economic damage was self-inflicted. Beaches that never saw a drop of oil went begging for tourists, fishermen were prohibited from much larger areas than necessary, shallow water drilling was halted when it's technology and spill record was utterly different from deep water drilling. This is not to say no beaches were oiled, no wildlife was harmed or that no changes to drilling rules were needed. All of those were so. We just compounded the economic and psychological effects by over-reaction and media hysteria.
Politics and the winner-take-all, no compromise attitudes of current US culture seem to dictate either a dire view of this as an unrecoverable evil perpetrated by the ne'r-do-wells of Big Oil or a little something that mother nature will patch right up. The reality is probably [and uncomfortably for partisans] somewhere in the middle.
For a forward looking analysis to what the outcome will be look to the Santa Barbra a Channel spill. The results are interesting to say the least. The final report explains what happens to crude oil that naturally leaks into the ocean world wide, some estimates it is almost as much crude as as the crude extracted from the ocean world wide. Crude oil naturally degrades and ends up as a fertilizer. In the Santa Barbra today there is more marine life and flora and sea weeds than before the spill. This explains why in the Gulf the fish migrate and are in greater abundance around the drilling platforms, ask the fisherman. Crude oil is fossils that are a natural substance that are in a condition of degrading and is not toxic to the ocean that ultimately naturally degrades and ends up as fertilizer and useful to stinulate growth sea plants and flora at the bottom of the ocean.
Thanks Bro, Someone finally hitting the target. Most of these folks don't realize that this was an associated well of oil and gas and it looked to me that there was a higher proportion of gas to oil ratio being released from the well and I never heard anything in regards to the gas so I suspect the full picture isn't being reported. To them it was all oil.
To me, The BIGGEST aspect of this catastrophe is that if this spill/leak happened on land, it would have been MUCH LESS environmentally damaging. We could have resolved/cleaned it MUCH faster.. But NO-O-O envir. activist won't let oil companies drill above ground in many places.(or shallow shelf areas) Pushing rigs into deeper areas for our insatiable appetite for oil. In my mind, it's THEIR fault..
That well was a bad well. That is why BP ditched it the way they did.
To "The end is near" It's right under your chin. BREATH
too bad this administration stopped the top kill in the 3rd week of this and could have adverted million of gallons of oil being dumped into the ocean.
Its your typical gov't thinks it knows best verse the oil experts.
4 Months later they put a cap on it and slowly turn off the flow and WOW no leaks and all is well **eyes roll*
With the two reports that seem to be coming from two different directions I don't think there's enough information available to answer the question. Also there is a strong odor of money and lawyers in this. At this point I would say keep people from messing things up and find the facts, then act.
a year later and they still cant amass more than a few dozen fish and birds and calling it an 'ecological disaster'. thousands of birds die randomly, and millions of fish die in a single day 'naturally' and 'scientits' say its natural, stuff like this happens all the time. Give me a break, the BP oil spill was not an 'ecological disaster'. things in nature live and die, and the eco system is in tact in the gulf. people try to relate it to the alaskan spill, wich is sorta like comparing being at ground zero of the hiroshima nuclear bomb when it detonated to being in kansas when fukushima first started having problems.
The BP oil is biodegradable, its in an environment that naturally HAS tar balls and oil seeping in all the time, so they find one tar ball and everyone goes ape@!$%#. if anything, we should have never used dispersants just to make it look pretty. 2ndly, the spill was very far from the cost, so its the equivalent to someone peing in the river and you swmming in the river to standing next to someone urinating in a kiddy pool. finally, alaska has a very weak and non diverse ecosystem compared to the gulf. in short, cut the mass hysteria and innuendo, its behavior like this that causes people to ignore real problems when they occur.
Autokad: I suspect you are a troll. Nonetheless, I feel real bad that you are so ignorant.
No fear, this all just eco babble
Autokad you are correct! we live amongst terrified fragile human beings. In a not so fragile world.
Autokad, no doubt this is natural to some extent, yes nature and man will do their best to fix this. Life on the Gulf will continue no doubt. We are a hardy bunch and survive all types of disaster man made and natural. My problem is the short cuts on safety BP is allowed to get away with. Texas City BP plant blew up because of a safety short cut, and the same with deep horizon. BP needs to be hit with a substantial fine. Do you not think they add up the cost of doing business safely versus paying out pittance to those who are hurt? Like most industry they do a cost analysis and decide if they will proceed with safety measures or not. We need to impose stricter laws and not worry about who's feelings we hurt nationally or internationally. WE need the oil, we need the jobs, but we need the Gulf as well and we need to protect her to the utmost degree and protect the people who make their living on the Gulf as well. How natural of a death was it for the eleven souls who died because it was cheaper not to do a safety test than to take time and precaution and due diligence for their lives and others.