[marron]

Thanks for the link. I don’t live near the Gulf anymore, but I visited there a few years after Ixtoc. At the time I visited I couldn’t see any visible evidence of the spill... but if you dug down a few inches there was a layer of oil. Still, to the naked eye, the area had recovered beautifully.

So, it takes time, but it does recover. Its organic. Microbes eat it. The biggest problem is to stop the leak. Nature will take care of the rest given time.

[21twelve]

“Nature will take care of the rest given time.”

It really amazes me soemtimes how resilent nature is if we give it the chance. I recall the articles about how the Illinois (?) river would catch fire from all the oil and pollution in it. How Lake Michigan was a “dead sea”. After we stopped dumping all our crap into it and cleaned up what we could, it is now a thriving fishery.

[Star Traveler]

You were saying ...

I don’t live near the Gulf anymore, but I visited there a few years after Ixtoc. At the time I visited I couldn’t see any visible evidence of the spill... but if you dug down a few inches there was a layer of oil. Still, to the naked eye, the area had recovered beautifully.

Well, if you take a look at the location of Ixtoc-1 and then take a look at the BP drill site (on the following maps...) you'll see why you didn't hardly see anything from Ixtoc-1 ... LOL ...

Map link to approximate location of Ixtoc-1 ...

It's slightly west of that mark (the red "A" down by Campeche, Mexico).

Compare that location to the location of BP's drill site, close to Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, all just as close as the others.

Map as of June 13th