Dr.Who
Well-Known Member
After all the predictions of ecological disaster in the spring, government officials have been searching hard for more evidence of harm. In early November, a Penn State marine biologist announced that he had finally found a “smoking gun”: dead and dying coral reefs in 4,500 feet of water not far from the spill site. Coral in shallower waters and farther from the site was unaffected.
THE SEARCH FOR DAMAGE TO THE GULF, IT SEEMS, IS A BIT LIKE THE SEARCH FOR WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION IN IRAQ. [caps added]
An armada of ships was assembled to respond to the leak caused by an explosion at the Deepwater Horizon well, and a virtual war was declared on it (and on the well’s owner, BP). It is—or should be—embarrassing that the predicted disaster failed to materialize.
In the end, 4.9 million barrels of oil flowed into the Gulf, almost 20 times the Exxon Valdez spill and the largest by far in U.S. history. But there are reasons the ecological consequences were so small in comparison with those of the Exxon Valdez."
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"Oddly enough, however, the ecosystem of the Gulf itself turns out to have suffered remarkably little damage from the continuous gushing of oil into the water from April 20 till July 15, when the leaking well was capped. One group of scientists rated the health of the Gulf’s ecology at 71 on a scale of 100 before the spill and 65 in October. By mid-August, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) was having trouble finding spilled oil. This squared with the finding of researchers from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California that the half-life of much of the leaking oil was about three days. At that rate, more than 90 percent would have disappeared in 12 days.
NOAA explained one reason for this in a report in August: “It is well known that bacteria that break down the dispersed and weathered surface oil are abundant in the Gulf of Mexico in large part because of the warm water, the favorable nutrient and oxygen levels, and the fact that oil regularly enters the Gulf of Mexico through natural seeps.” In other words, the organisms that normally live off the Gulf’s large natural seepage of oil into the water multiplied extremely rapidly and went on a feeding frenzy. Another 25 percent of the spilled oil—the lightest and most toxic part—simply evaporated at the surface or dissolved quickly.
Damage to wildlife, too, was relatively sparse. As of November 2, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reported that 2,263 oil-soiled bird remains had been collected in the Gulf, far fewer than the 225,000 birds killed by the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska in 1989. Despite fears for turtles, only 18 dead oil-soiled turtles had been found. No other reptile deaths were recorded. While more than 1,000 sea otters alone had died in the Alaska spill, only 4 oil-soiled mammals (including dolphins) had been found dead in the Gulf region. These are very small numbers relative to the base populations. Similarly, government agencies were unable to find any evidence of dead fish. Fish can simply swim away from trouble. Nor was evidence found of contamination of live fish. In one government test, 2,768 chemical analyses uncovered no signs of contamination."
http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/oil-spill-hysteria_522140.html
THE SEARCH FOR DAMAGE TO THE GULF, IT SEEMS, IS A BIT LIKE THE SEARCH FOR WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION IN IRAQ. [caps added]
An armada of ships was assembled to respond to the leak caused by an explosion at the Deepwater Horizon well, and a virtual war was declared on it (and on the well’s owner, BP). It is—or should be—embarrassing that the predicted disaster failed to materialize.
In the end, 4.9 million barrels of oil flowed into the Gulf, almost 20 times the Exxon Valdez spill and the largest by far in U.S. history. But there are reasons the ecological consequences were so small in comparison with those of the Exxon Valdez."
[]
"Oddly enough, however, the ecosystem of the Gulf itself turns out to have suffered remarkably little damage from the continuous gushing of oil into the water from April 20 till July 15, when the leaking well was capped. One group of scientists rated the health of the Gulf’s ecology at 71 on a scale of 100 before the spill and 65 in October. By mid-August, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) was having trouble finding spilled oil. This squared with the finding of researchers from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California that the half-life of much of the leaking oil was about three days. At that rate, more than 90 percent would have disappeared in 12 days.
NOAA explained one reason for this in a report in August: “It is well known that bacteria that break down the dispersed and weathered surface oil are abundant in the Gulf of Mexico in large part because of the warm water, the favorable nutrient and oxygen levels, and the fact that oil regularly enters the Gulf of Mexico through natural seeps.” In other words, the organisms that normally live off the Gulf’s large natural seepage of oil into the water multiplied extremely rapidly and went on a feeding frenzy. Another 25 percent of the spilled oil—the lightest and most toxic part—simply evaporated at the surface or dissolved quickly.
Damage to wildlife, too, was relatively sparse. As of November 2, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reported that 2,263 oil-soiled bird remains had been collected in the Gulf, far fewer than the 225,000 birds killed by the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska in 1989. Despite fears for turtles, only 18 dead oil-soiled turtles had been found. No other reptile deaths were recorded. While more than 1,000 sea otters alone had died in the Alaska spill, only 4 oil-soiled mammals (including dolphins) had been found dead in the Gulf region. These are very small numbers relative to the base populations. Similarly, government agencies were unable to find any evidence of dead fish. Fish can simply swim away from trouble. Nor was evidence found of contamination of live fish. In one government test, 2,768 chemical analyses uncovered no signs of contamination."
http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/oil-spill-hysteria_522140.html
