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EarthTalk®
From the Editors of E/The Environmental Magazine
Dear
EarthTalk: Is it true that the BP oil leak is much more of an
environmental threat than previous spills from tankers, and if
so why? -- Nathan Gore, Pawtucket, RI
No
one knows for sure how the ongoing oil catastrophe in the Gulf
of Mexico will affect the deep sea ecosystem, but scientists are
not optimistic. Oil from what is now considered the nation's second
largest spill, 1989's Exxon Valdez mishap, slicked 11,000 square
miles of ocean surface and 1,300 miles of pristine Alaskan coastline
while killing hundreds of thousands of birds and marine mammals
and untold numbers of fish and fish eggs. But the impacts of the
ongoing Deepwater Horizon leak in the Gulf may be far worse given
that much of the loose oil is actually in the water column, not
on the surface. In fact, researchers from the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) recently detected huge deepwater
plumes of dispersed oil up to 30 miles long, seven miles wide
and hundreds of feet thick.
Why
would an undersea spill be worse? One outcome could be the expansion
in size and extension in time of a seasonal "dead zone"
that already plagues the Gulf of Mexico as a result of industrial
pollutants and agricultural run-off from the Mississippi River.
While huge Gulf of Mexico algae blooms help to naturally clean
up the Midwest's factory emissions and wasted fertilizer, such
a process doesn't come without a cost to the ecosystem. Every
spring, in a condition known as hypoxia, this fast growing algae
depletes large sections of the Gulf's water column of the oxygen
crucial for other life forms to survive there. The BP oil spill
is likely to exacerbate this problem, as natural oil-eating microbes
swarming over undersea oil plumes could cause or add to hypoxic
conditions in otherwise teeming swaths of the Gulf.
According
to NOAA researcher Samantha Joye, the undersea oil poses a direct
threat to large marine wildlife, such as fish, sharks and cetaceans,
and also to the tiny stuff, including zooplankton, shrimp, corals,
crabs and worms. By endangering these latter populations, the
foundation of the marine food chain, the oil could have chronic
long-term effects on the wider Gulf ecosystem, including the industries-more
shrimp and oysters come from the Gulf than anywhere else in the
world-that rely on them.
Another
worry is how the chemical dispersants being used to break up the
undersea oil will impact the Gulf's ecosystems and inhabitants.
The dispersant's ingredients are a trade secret closely held by
the company that makes it, and therefore have not been vetted
by marine biologists to determine their safety for use in such
a large application. It also remains to be seen what impact the
tiny oil droplets left in the dispersant's wake will have. It
could actually be worse for the undersea environment to break
the oil up into tiny droplets (which is done to try to make it
easier for microbes to digest them).
Beyond
all these undersea environmental effects, the oil is also starting
to wash up into coastal wetlands already besieged by overdevelopment,
pollution and the lingering effects of Hurricane Katrina. If there
can be any silver lining to this catastrophe, it may be that it
is the wake-up call we've needed to start moving more rapidly
away from fossil fuels to a clean, renewable energy future. For
starters, we can all begin to reduce our own oil consumption and
opt for clean and green energy sources whenever possible.
CONTACTS:
Deepwater Horizon Response, www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com;
NOAA, www.noaa.gov.
SEND
YOUR ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTIONS TO: EarthTalk®, c/o E - The Environmental
Magazine, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881; earthtalk@emagazine.com.
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