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Newsletter
| The End of the Gulf Oil? |
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| Écrit par Richard |
| Jeudi, 05 Août 2010 07:28 |
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According to the US government, the damage to the environment has not been as extensive as could have been expected. This, indeed, is very good news. In fact, over three quarters of the oil that leaked from the well has now been dispersed and poses no further risk to wildlife.
The American National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration claims that the remaining 26% of the oil "is on or just below the surface as light sheen or weathered tar ball, has washed ashore or been collected from the shore, or is buried in sand and sediments.” That’s still a lot of oil that has to be cleaned up and it will keep BP busy for a while yet.
However, the ocean toxicologist Susan Shaw is not so convinced that the environmental impact is low. She believes that the chemical dispersants that have been applied to the oil slick are very toxic to marine life, especially when combined with oil.
The US government and BP could have taken two different approaches to dealing with the leaked oil. The first was to try to collect it all on the surface and the second was to use dispersants. If you don’t use dispersants, the oil will float to the surface and eventually wash up on beaches or be dispersed naturally. However when dispersants are used, the oil is dispersed throughout the whole body of water from the sea floor up. The following two images from a talk by Susan Shaw and provided by ExxonMobil illustrate this.
  Oil on the surface is much more visible to the human eye. However, dispersed oil appears to be gone, yet is still in the water. Hence, the more the oil is dispersed through the water, the more oil can find its way into marine life. The impact of this oil spill on marine life in the Gulf is only just beginning. It will require years of research to determine what the impact of the oil and the chemicals has been on our oceans, and how we can better tackle the next great oil spill.
It’s worth taking a look at Susan Shaw’s TED presentation on marine toxicology.
What is clear is that just because the oil has stopped spewing, it has not gone and its effects have not finished. Although we hope that the environment will sort itself out as quickly as possible, we should take a cautious view in declaring the Gulf recovered. Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tabithahawk/4797297231          |
