The gooey oil washing into the maze of marshes along the Gulf Coast could prove impossible to remove, leaving a toxic stew lethal to fish and wildlife, government officials and independent scientists said. Officials are considering some drastic and risky solutions: They could set the wetlands on fire or flood areas in hopes of floating out the oil.
They warn an aggressive cleanup could ruin the marshes and do more harm than good. The only viable option for many impacted areas is to do nothing and let nature break down the spill.
More than 50 miles of Louisiana's delicate shoreline already have been soiled by the massive slick unleashed after the Deepwater Horizon rig burned and sank last month. Officials fear oil eventually could invade wetlands and beaches from Texas to Florida. Louisiana is expected to be hit hardest.
On Saturday, a major pelican rookery was awash in oil off Louisiana's coast. Hundreds of birds nest on the island, and an Associated Press photographer saw some birds and their eggs stained with the ooze. Nests were perched in mangroves directly above patches of crude.
Plaquemines Parish workers put booms around the island, but puddles of oil were inside the barrier.
"Oil in the marshes is the worst-case scenario," said Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the head of the federal effort to contain and clean up the spill.
Can't somebody get me outta' here !?! Also Saturday, BP told federal regulators it plans to continue using a contentious chemical dispersant, despite orders from the Environmental Protection Agency to look for less toxic alternatives. BP said in a letter to the EPA that Corexit 9500 "remains the best option for subsea application."
The EPA didn't immediately comment on BP's decision.
Oil that has rolled into shoreline wetlands coats the stalks and leaves of plants such as roseau cane — the fabric that holds together an ecosystem that is essential to the region's fishing industry and a much-needed buffer against Gulf hurricanes. Soon, oil will smother those plants and choke off their supply of air and nutrients.
Marshes offer a vital line of defense against Gulf storms, blunting their fury before they hit populated areas. Louisiana and the federal government have spent hundreds of millions of dollars rebuilding barriers that were wiped out by hurricanes, notably Katrina in 2005.
They also act as nursery grounds for shrimp, crabs, oysters — the backbone of the region's fishing industry. Hundreds of thousands of migratory birds nest in the wetlands' inner reaches, a complex network of bayous, bays and man-made canals
Video on the incoming Oil - Toxic Yuck
Not MY idea of a Bird Bath!!!
Seabirds are strongly affected by oil spills. A seabird may get covered in the oil. The thick black oil is too heavy for the birds to fly, so they attempt to clean themselves. The bird then eats the oil to clean its feathers and poisons itself. If workers have found sea birds that are not dead because of oil, they will take the birds to a cleaning center or captivity where they are kept in a facility because they can not live in the wild on their own. Animals that are in captivity because of an oil spill will be cleaned by professionals and volunteers. When a bird is in captivity, the oil will be flushed from its eyes, intestines, and feathers. The bird will be examined for any more injuries like broken bones, and it will take a medicine to prevent any more damage.
After the bird seems healthier, it will take a test on its abilities to float in the water and keep water away from its body. As soon as the bird passes its test, it will soon be let out into the wild.
The nonprofit Suncoast Seabird Sanctuary, Inc. is the largest wild bird hospital and bird sanctuary in the United States, based on the admission of up to 8,000 birds per year. It is set up to immediately triage, stabilize and administer fluids to oiled, malnourished, or injured birds. The birds would then need to be transported to a hazardous materials cleaning site. The Sanctuary has received thousand's of emails and calls from around the world from concerned groups and individuals.
As always your comments are appreciated and VERY welcome..
It is a Cousteau game, there are others right there too!
For a bit more advanced Marine and Environmental study start with Jason Note for kids:You do have to sign in - so you may have to check with a parent first...be cool and open when you use computers.
I have been teaching and preaching, searching and researching Environmental Responsibility /Stewardship / Sustainability and Education, knowingly and unknowingly, actively and passively for as long as I can remember.
I learned to love river waters when crossing bridges in old Fords with "nose-to-the-glass" anticipation.
I discovered their history page by page with Lewis and Clark.
I learned to predict what lies ahead by reading them from the stern of a canoe.
I was taught by them -guided by Hereclitus; “You can never step into the same river twice; for new waters are always flowing on to you.”(Greek philosopher remembered for his cosmology, 540-480BC)
Then I found where all my rivers went.
Oh Ocean, she was so scary at first- she was beyond power, beyond mystery, she was completely unfathomable from shore.
Books and television unlocked land-locked eyes and ears and imagination... and Cousteau became a Hero.
And of course, Sea Hunt! (OMG if Lloyd Bridges wasn't truly, secretly, really Aquaman then who was? )
Once I stepped into her surf, I never stepped out. I've been north and south and to the other side of the world, she is always there- waiting .
I have shared (some of) her secrets with others, sung her beauty to loved ones, splashed her laughs with children, and been uplifted by her buoyant, boundless promise in the simple solitude of a sunset swim.
The List of Will We Never Learn?
1) Arabian Gulf Spills
Note: This is currently the world's largest and the oil spill took place during the Gulf War when Iraqi forces deliberately destroyed oil tankers, wells and terminals.
• Location: Persian Gulf • Year: 1991 • Amount of Oil Spilled in Gallons and Liters: 520 million gallons (1.9 billion liters)
2) Ixtoc I Oil Well
• Location: Gulf of Mexico • Year: 1979 • Amount of Oil Spilled in Gallons and Liters: 140 million gallons (530 million liters)
NOTE: It took nearly 10 months for the responders to stop the oil from flowing in the IXTOC 1 accident. And this was a well that was in only about 164 feet of water. That allowed divers to be sent down to cap the well The Deep water Horizon is in 5000 feet of water
3) Atlantic Empress
• Location: Trinidad and Tobago • Year: 1979 • Amount of Oil Spilled in Gallons and Liters: 90 million gallons (340 million liters)
4) Fergana Valley
• Location: Uzbekistan • Year: 1992 • Amount of Oil Spilled in Gallons and Liters: 88 million gallons (333 million liters)
5) ABT Summer
• Location: 700 nautical miles from Angola (3,900 km) • Year: 1991 • Amount of Oil Spilled in Gallons and Liters: 82 million gallons (310 million liters)
6) Nowruz Field Platform
• Location: Persian Gulf • Year: 1983 • Amount of Oil Spilled in Gallons and Liters: 80 million gallons (303 million liters)
7) Castillo de Bellver
• Location: Saldanha Bay, South Africa • Year: 1983 • Amount of Oil Spilled in Gallons and Liters: 79 million gallons (300 million liters)
8) Amoco Cadiz
• Location: Brittany, France • Year: 1978 • Amount of Oil Spilled in Gallons and Liters: 69 million gallons (261 million liters)
9) MT Haven
• Location: Mediterranean Sea near Italy • Year: 1991 • Amount of Oil Spilled in Gallons and Liters: 45 million gallons (170 million liters)
10) Odyssey
• Location: 700 nautical miles (3,900 km) off of Nova Scotia, Canada • Year: 1988 • Amount of Oil Spilled in Gallons and Liters: 42 million gallons (159 million liters)
11) Sea Star
• Location: Gulf of Oman • Year: 1972 • Amount of Oil Spilled in Gallons and Liters: 37 million gallons (140 million liters)
12) Morris J. Berman
• Location: Puerto Rico • Year: 1994 • Amount of Oil Spilled in Gallons and Liters: 34 million gallons (129 million liters)
13) Irenes Serenade
• Location: Navarino Bay, Greece • Year: 1980 • Amount of Oil Spilled in Gallons and Liters: 32 million gallons (121 million liters)
14) Urquiola • Location: A Coruña, Spain • Year: 1976 • Amount of Oil Spilled in Gallons and Liters: 32 million gallons (121 million liters)
15) Torrey Canyon
• Location: Isles of Scilly, United Kingdom • Year: 1967 • Amount of Oil Spilled in Gallons and Liters: 31 million gallons (117 million liters)
The Exxon-Valdez oil spill in 1989 was the largest spill in United States history. It occurred in Prince William Sound, Alaska and spilled around 10.8 million gallons (40.8 million liters) and impacted 1,100 miles (1,609 km) of coast.
It isn't just the SIZE of the spill, but the NUMBER of spills Click on NOAA' s Incedent News and you just might be shocked.
And now, once again,
How dare they!
My Ocean belongs at once to no one and to everyone.
How dare anyone, anywhere, at anytime for any reason threaten, harm, despoil, and foul her, for the ocean is the source of life- your life, our life, all life .... my life.
Less than a year before the Deep Horizon, July 21, 2009 in the Gulf 20 miles off the Mexican Coast... " At least 18 oil workers were killed when a drilling rig hit an oil platform in stormy weather, spilling gas and oil into the Gulf of Mexico, the state-owned oil company Pemex said. Seven workers were still missing." (below left)
And as mentioned in an earlier MRV BEACH TEACH BLOG "SLICK OIL" the North Australian oil spill of last summer; "Conservationists warned yesterday that one of Australia's worst off-shore oil spills was killing wildlife and "massively contaminating" one of the world's last great wildnernesses. Amid a fourth attempt to plug the 64-day-old leak at the Montara drilling rig, the slick – which has already spread over an area 10 times the size of London – continued to expand..." (below right)
From The Huffington Post James Moore May 3rd, 2010
We might be powerless.
The oil flowing out from the seabed in the Gulf of Mexico may be under such great pressure that we do not possess technology to stop the tragedy. Chances are quite good we have no true sense of the dire nature of the situation. The facts that have been ascertained, however, lead to a dark scenario. We know that the blowout preventers did not work but we do not know why. There are theories, though. The Deepwater Horizon rig was floating on pontoons about 5000 feet above the floor of the Gulf. When drillers struck an oil deposit, the bit was reported to be at about 18,000 feet, which is approximately three and a half miles beneath the platform. Does science even know what kind of pressure can be encountered at that depth, under almost a mile of water and two and half miles of rock? BP and Transocean, which owns the rig, has said there was a maximum working pressure of 20,000 PSI but the system was able to handle a kickback pressure from gasses of about 60,000 PSI. The breakdown of the blowout preventers can be interpreted to mean the pressure coming up from the hole exceeded 60,000 PSI. Generally, various mixtures of mud circulate up and down the drill pipe to act as lubricants and equalize pressures encountered at great depth, and this process was said to be working at the time of the accident. Does this mean it's possible, even likely, that the Deepwater Horizon encountered pressures current technologies are not equipped to handle?
Although BP and Washington are trying very hard to convince the public that everything possible is being done to stem the flow of crude, there is seemingly little that might be accomplished. 5000 feet below the surface of the water with oil blasting out at tens of thousands of PSI, and wreckage from the giant rig scattered about, fixes are not easy to find. The latest plan is for a special funnel to be placed over the spout, which will then force the flow into a pumping channel. But how does a funnel get placed over the top of anything pushing at that kind of pressure? Consider that story to be an unrealistic solution.
A well blowout in 1979 offers a bit of context; except the Deepwater Horizon horror show is already about to transcend what happened in the Bay of Campeche off the coast of Mexico. The Ixtoc 1 rig blew and began to spew crude that flowed uninterrupted for nine months. Before the well was capped, 3,000,000 barrels of crude had drifted north to Texas and the northern coast of Mexico. The endangered Kemps-Ridley turtle, which nests along the border beaches, had to be airlifted to safety and has only begun in recent years to recover in population.
The Ixtoc disaster, however, is a spit in the ocean compared to the British Petroleum apocalypse. Estimates are the current blowout is putting 200,000 gallons or 5000 barrels of crude per day into the waters of the Gulf. Ixtoc's blowout was not capped until two relief wells were drilled and completed at the end of those nine months, and regardless of optimistic scenarios from the federal government or BP, relieving the pressure on the current flow is probably the only way to stop the polluting release of oil. The only way to relieve that pressure is with additional wells. No one is going to honestly say how much time is needed to drill such wells but consider the scope of environmental damage we are confronting if it requires at least as long as Ixtoc. Nine months of 5000 barrels of crude per day ought to turn the Gulf of Mexico into a lifeless spill pond and set toxins on currents that will carry them to deadly business around the globe.
NOAA apparently believes the situation is on the verge of getting worse. A leaked memo suggests that the tangle of pipes on the ocean floor are covering and constraining two other release points. Pressure is likely to blow those loose and, according to NOAA, the gusher will increase by "orders of magnitude." In most interpretations, that phrase means a ten-fold rise in the flow, which will replicate the Ixtoc disaster in three days.
And there are no guarantees relief wells are the fix. That is a complicated project. They are drilled to intersect the main well and then concrete is forced down the holes to seal the leaking well. What do we do, if that doesn't work? Humans cannot function at 5000 feet of ocean depth and the mitigation efforts currently are being handled by robotic remotes. What is left to us as a solution other than an explosive device, which is often what is deployed during above ground blowouts? Given the pressures reported and the amount of flow, we may need a bunker-buster nuke to be placed over the wellhead. We can then begin to talk about the water pressures caused by burst at detonation and residual radiation. Is that a better or worse situation? Certainly, aquatic life in the Gulf of Mexico is doomed unless there is a reclusive genius to step forward and save us from our great failure.
The attorney general of Texas, Greg Abbot, informed reporters that it appears Texas will escape harm. Abbot's visionary powers must exceed his legal skills since there is no way to know when and even if the well will ever be capped. In fact, if there is no plug placed in the hole, it is not inconceivable that no part of the planet's oceans will escape harm. According to the non-profit, non-partisan Air and Waste Management Association, a quart of crude oil will make 150,000 gallons of water toxic to aquatic life. BP, which has been marketing itself as an energy company "beyond petroleum," is setting loose upon the planet what is quickly turning into humankind's worst environmental disaster. Tone-deaf politicians, especially from Texas, are trying to manage public fears, which is exactly what the state's former governor attempted in 1979. Bill Clements, who was one of the founders of SEDCO and owned the Ixtoc platform, originally described concerns as "much ado about nothing." As oil moved toward the pristine beaches of the Padre Island National Seashore, his advice was to "pray for a hurricane." I confronted Clements on his lack of concern and he stuck his finger in my chest and told me the state was not hurt. Thirty years later the tar balls still roll in with shifts of tide and wind and oil was everywhere on the beach for years.
Anyone who thinks this tragedy is not going to result in massive kills of marine life is either blind, ignorant, or in denial. The one scenario that we all refuse to confront is the possibility that it is beyond our capabilities to stop this undersea blast of oil. If that is the case, the flow continues until the pressure eases, which might be years. How much ecological injury will that cause our planet?
Nobody knows.
Comments are very welcome please post in the comments box. Maybe you have a solution.
etlands' inner reaches, a complex network of bayous, bays and man-made canals
This one is good for Marine study
rld, she is always there- waiting .
Deepwater Horizon Response Website
d began to spew crude that flowed uninterrupted for nine months.
re drilled and completed at the end of those nine months, and regardless of optimistic scenarios from the federal government or BP, relieving the pressure on the current flow is probably the only way to stop the polluting release of oil. The only way to relieve that pressure is with additional wells. No one is going to honestly say how much time is needed to drill such wells but consider the scope of environmental damage we are confronting if it requires at least as long as Ixtoc. Nine months of 5000 barrels of crude per day ought to turn the Gulf of Mexico into a lifeless spill pond and set toxins on currents that will carry them to deadly business around the globe.
