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PBS NewsHour: Study: ‘Footprint’ of 2010 Gulf Oil Spill may be worse than thought


PeterMP

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http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/bp-oil-spill-affects-marine-life-previously-believed/

 

"Pennsylvania State University researchers recently found two partially dead, deep sea coral reefs 22 kilometers east of the site of the spill, according to a study released this week."

 

"Deep sea reefs are crucial for underwater ecosystems. In addition to providing habitats for dozens of species, the reefs also participate in carbon and nitrogen cycling processes and shelter the eggs of fish and sharks.

 

Fisher said the discovery of additional damaged reefs indicates that the deep sea is still responding to the 2010 spill’s damage.

 

“It seems like its been along time [since the spill], but the deep sea is a slow-moving environment. The water temperature down there is 4 degrees Celsius… Things change slowly. So it could be a while before things are fully recognized in the wider Gulf,” he said."

 

The original thread has been archived (http://es.redskins.com/topic/308377-csm-ecological-risk-grows-as-deepwater-horizon-oil-rig-sinks-in-gulf/) so I started a new one.

 

The long and short of it is that BP (with the approval of the EPA) used an unprecedented amount of dispersants and in an essentially unprecedented/untested manner (not on the surface).

 

This prevented large patches of oil from coming onto the surface,  which while making for bad PR and pictures can be more easily treated (burned, skimmed, etc).

 

The end result is that the disperesed oil droplets stayed under water longer (and some is still likely there (because it is more stable deeper under water)) and traveled more doing "unexpected" (if you were willingly clueless) damage.

 

Meanwhile, BP is done and gone in terms of the fines and costs of clean up and monitoring of the damage (though they are still in civil court making arguments to limit their liability on the civil front).

 

http://www.wwltv.com/news/eyewitness/davidhammer/BP-medical-settlements-new-interpretation-could-cut-out-thousands-271333851.html

 

BP (with the approval of the EPA) traded longer term less obvious damage for shorter term more obvious damage with no real mechanism in place to make them figure out what the longer term damage is or pay for it, and it was pretty obvious this was the case back in 2010.

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Using corexit to dump the oil deep underwater also ended up raising the toxicity of the materials by a whole lot.

 

Now microbes are unable to break down all the hydrocarbons that were mixed in with Corexit.

 

http://summitcountyvoice.com/2014/08/02/environment-oil-eating-microbes-in-the-gulf-of-mexico-left-behind-the-most-toxic-remnants-of-the-deepwater-horizon-spill/

 

Two new Florida State University studies in a deep sea oil plume found found that a species of bacteria called Colwellia likely consumed gaseous hydrocarbons and perhaps benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene compounds that were released as part of the oil spill — but not the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which are a group of semi-volatile organic compounds that are present in crude oil and can cause long-term health problems such as cancer.

“Those PAHs could persist for a long time, particularly if they are buried in the ocean floor where lack of oxygen would slow PAH degradation by microorganisms,” said FSU assistant professor Olivia Mason. “They’re going to persist in the environment and have deleterious effects on whatever is living in the sediment.”

 

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are ya'll questioning the EPA's choice/science?  ;) ....I like the company

 

it does seem rather better than the doomsday portrayed at the time if ya want to look at the bright side though.

 

my shrimp don't even need charcoal to grill now.....just light them puppies  :rolleyes:

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they didn't, it's a literary gimmick ....it is better than I expected from the report though

 

How is it better than expected?

 

Who was talking about deep sea coral miles away being killed during the event?

 

It is different because people were talking about things that are normally highly affected (like birds and marshes) being highly affected.

 

Those things were less affected then expected, but things that nobody really considered to be likely highly affected (like deep sea coral) are affected.

 

That's not better.

 

BP shifted the problems from what people expected to things that we didn't expect through the use of dispersants.  We don't know if it is better or not, and we likely won't know for years if ever.

 

And in fact, we do a better job of interacting with things on the surface (for things like marshes, we can even do things like go in and remove oiled soil).

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BP shifted the problems from what people expected to things that we didn't expect through the use of dispersants.  We don't know if it is better or not, and we likely won't know for years if ever.

 

 

 

Hopefully we'll never know, because that means that no further damages will be observed.  I think what he's getting at is that the regional fishing industry was not as affected as some had feared. But like the Bay, who knows what processes are now lurking beneath.

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Hopefully we'll never know, because that means that no further damages will be observed.  I think what he's getting at is that the regional fishing industry was not as affected as some had feared. But like the Bay, who knows what processes are now lurking beneath.

 

The oyster population in the Gulf has essentially been decimated.

 

http://gulfseafoodnews.com/2014/04/21/gulf-oysters-at-zero-population/

 

There isn't good evidence that's directly from the oil itself, but I don't think anybody (other than BP) would be comfortable saying that the oil and/or dispersants might be playing a role, and some of it is almost certainly do to flooding of fresh water from land to try and keep the oil out of the marshes affecting the oyster beds.

 

Not that there aren't plenty of other issues for oysters in the gulf too.

 

We're also down to about 40,000 blue fin Atlantic tuna in the gulf.  Again, this isn't entirely due to the oil (if you go back and read the old thread, the possibility of the oil spill being an extinction event came up.  twa said it wasn't.  I said alone it wasn't, but given the issues the gulf already has, it might be the sort of thing that could push some species over the edge, and the tuna seem like they are teetering), and there oil has been found to affect the development of the heart.

 

Other fish species weren't in as bad shape before the oil spill and haven't been hit as hard either, but the oil also affected their hearts too, and the long term affects of loss of habitat from dying coral reefs is completely unclear at this time.

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 Not many were talking about them considering most of the public were unaware even of their existence , those with some knowledge were though.

 .

most of the public has no clue what lurks below,and has for ages, the baselines and new discoveries are a good thing.....as is the limited impact.

 

the dispersants were consensus science at work.....don't try to crawfish now  ;)

 

seeding with artificial reefs will likely even increase the colonies beyond what it would have been

 

the problems with oysters are largely from runoff issues, as is the recurring dead zones.(as you well know)

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 the dispersants were consensus science at work.....don't try to crawfish now  ;)

 

 

No it wasn't. We did not know what effect using huge amounts of corexit to submerge oil deep underwater would have. Most of the toxicity reports came afterwards, especially those showing the effects are synergistic. We barely had knowledge of the health risks of corexit+oil, despite some early studies showing that it stunts development, damages blood vessels and may be carcinogenic. 

 

The problem was the EPA approving BP to use this without any understanding of what damage it may cause long term. It was a good short term fix because it hid the massive **** up on BPs part and that's what it was all about at that time.

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The EPA was making things up as they went along.  There was no consensus because nobody had ever dealt with an oil spill that large in that deep of water and that much dispersant used period, or that much dispersant used in that manner.

 

And I was saying pretty much the same thing in the thread as it was happening.

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And I was saying pretty much the same thing in the thread as it was happening.

 

and I was posting links on deep sea coral studies, and methane based colonies ....and the natural seeps from the same formation

 

extinction has not arrived ,nor has even the coral in the immediate vicinity been extinguished(it might be interesting to see if new are developing on all the debris left behind

 

we will continue adding to both our data baselines and discoveries.....worse than thought is certainly not what I see. (problems some were ignorant of might be better)

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and I was posting links on deep sea coral studies, and methane based colonies ....and the natural seeps from the same formation

 

extinction has not arrived ,nor has even the coral in the immediate vicinity been extinguished(it might be interesting to see if new are developing on all the debris left behind

 

we will continue adding to both our data baselines and discoveries.....worse than thought is certainly not what I see. (problems some were ignorant of might be better)

 

Coral reefs were originally brought up (by me) after it was clear that the use of the under water dispersants had shifted the behavior of the oil from coming up relatively quickly to staying submerged longer.

 

(which has been formally now verified through studies

 

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/04/110420-gulf-oil-spill-anniversary-plumes-dispersants-science-nation/

 

)

 

Normally, unless the coral reef is very near by, you wouldn't expect much damage to be done.

 

And what these people, who study deep sea coral reefs are saying, is that the damage done to deep sea coral reefs is more extensive than they thought/expected based on the direction and distance to the oil spill.

 

With respect to what they study, it is WORSE.

 

With respect to what most people (even experts) expect from a normal oil spill, things are "better".  The marshes were not overly oiled.  Oil didn't sit on the surface for much or for long and do things like oil sea birds, but that's because of the use of the dispersants and what the experts are saying is that the damage to important under sea environments (like deep sea coral) are worse than they'd expect.

 

The situation is not "better" than thought by people.  It is different, and it is different in a manner that we actually have less experience with dealing with and less understanding of and I suspect less ability to intervene.

 

Will there be extinctions?

 

I don't know.

 

And that will depend highly on how much we intervene (if we start doing things to take atlantic blue fin tuna larva out of the gulf raising them until they are more mature, and then returning them, the odds go way down).

 

But things are struggling partially because of pre-existing problems in the gulf that were complicated by the oil spill.

 

And the spill was years ago now, and it likely will be years more until we have a real picture (because of the time it is going to take the oil to be processed at that depth and the cascading affects through the ecosystem- not because of the rate/quality at which we are studying it (which is also an issue)) of the effects.

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