Posted on 08/17/2010 2:35:04 AM PDT by lbryce
A new report set to be released Tuesday renews concerns about the long-term environmental impact of the Gulf Coast oil disaster, and efforts to permanently plug the ruptured BP oil well have been delayed again.
Researchers at the University of South Florida have concluded that oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill may have settled to the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico further east than previously suspected -- and at levels toxic to marine life.
Initial findings from a new survey of the Gulf conclude that dispersants may have sent droplets of crude to the ocean floor, where it has turned up at the bottom of an undersea canyon within 40 miles of the Florida Panhandle. The results are scheduled to be released Tuesday, but CNN obtained a summary of the initial conclusions Monday night.
Plankton and other organisms at the base of the food chain showed a "strong toxic response" to the crude, and the oil could well up onto the continental shelf and resurface later, according to researchers.
"The dispersant is moving the oil down out of the surface and into the deeper waters, where it can affect phytoplankton and other marine life," said John Paul, a marine microbiologist at USF.
The spill erupted April 20 with an explosion that sank the offshore drilling platform Deepwater Horizon. The blast killed 11 men and uncapped an undersea gusher that spewed an estimated 205 million gallons of oil into the Gulf before it was temporarily shut on July 15.
Retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the federal government's point man in the Gulf, said Monday that attempts to permanently seal the well won't start until the latest potential problem is evaluated.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Better yet, these researchers say it “might” be so. Obviously, their solution is more money to “study” their thoery. Most likely some pointy headed dolt who knows nothing of the Gulf waters and the area around it.
From my earliest days of living in this state, we have always experienced the occasional tar balls on all of the beaches in Florida. These dolts have no concept that oil leaks through to the ocean floor every day all over the world and that more oil is “vented” to the oceans in a year than the entire Deep Horizon episode.
Maybe they should go out to LA and “study” the tar pits they can walk right up to. They might learn something truly stunning considering their mindset in that there were no oil drilling rigs that brought this oil to the surface.
Your post is full of crap.
Native born retired longline Captain.
More like spin to cover Obamao on the deep water drilling ban.
The Dead Pelican.com has covered this for a long time,,,
The plume is about 6 miles wide and 10 miles long and
about 600 feet deep IIRC,,,
BP squirted that Corexit at the blowout to keep the oil
on the bottom so the fine they will have to pay will
be less when all this mess goes to court,,,
Eat Gulf seafood at your own risk!...
Opinions are fantastic things, you are entitled to yours and I to mine.
“Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one’s living at it.” Albert Einstein
Remind me again who it was that ordered BP to use dispersants.
Crude oil contains both light and heavy fractions. The oil heavier than 7 API will sink and collect on the bottom.
re: post #6
Oil floats. Who writes, reads, or believes this shit? Seriously, any on FR who believe in this shitty science should just go to DU instead cause you’re much too stupid to be a conservative.
What we are seeing here IMO is the hard-left enviro movement trying to get support for an offshore drilling moratorium by saying, "Don't believe your lying eyes, forget the reports from the field that the oil is largely gone, this is far worse, we know it, we just can't prove it, so support a drilling ban!"
Pretty transparent to me. Heck, they were running ads for it last night on cable on a critter show I was watching.
This oil was pretty light overall. And the Gulf is a huge body of warm water with microbes that actively eat oil seeps, as opposed to Prince Edward Sound, a restricted and cold body of water. It can absorb and consume this oil.
...report back.
It can be light crude, yet still contain heavy molecules.
My specialty for the past 25 years has been the heavy fractions many of which are heavier than water.
If oil is 10 API or lighter, it will float in fresh water.
If oil is 7 API or heavier, it will sink in salt water.
I told ya' so. I said this would happen many weeks ago. I was poo-pooed and called scientifically illiterate.
I said this would eventually become an international incident with oil washing up on shores throughout the Caribbean and even the EASTERN seaboard, as the underwater slick reaches the Gulf and begins to flow into the Gulf Stream. By Spring of 2011 this oil spill that 0bama failed to contain will be an international scourge on America.
I should have bookmarked that thread or linked it to my profile.
The Gulf Stream System originates in the tropical North Atlantic, born of two other currents. One current, known as the North Equatorial Current, moves east of the Bahamas. The other moves through the Caribbean Sea, travels through the Gulf of Mexico as the Loop Current, and then speeds up in the Straits of Florida. When the two parts join, this western boundary current, the Gulf Stream, travels north along the coast of the southeaster United States. The Gulf Stream veers off the North American continent near Cape Hatteras and travels across the Atlantic Ocean.
Yep, got to keep all that grant money flowing out of the Treasury to fund these useless "eviromental studies" departments at various Universities so it time for a new chicken little report about possible hints of a rumor of a new catastrophe that may be happening.
Total BS manufactured by "academic" con men looking for a new con.
The USF study is not government funded.
I have worked next to those guys offshore as well as with scientists from Mote Marine Laboratory in Pinellas county and they are not slackers. And we do not see tar balls washing up on our coasts in W-SW Florida. Maybe in the Panhandle..I don't get to those Beach's often.
But it's best to wait and see what transpires...To be wrong about the possible damage and blindly go headlong into the same activities that caused this disaster without all the information in is simply foolish. Prudence is dictated.
This article is 100% PURE CRAP.
The entire Gulf has oil seepage everywhere. It is natural.
I live along the coast of Lake Erie. Some years back, after a really heavy rain, we noticed bubbles coming from cracks in the blacktop of our parking lot at work. Talk and discussion among the employees all year finally resulted in our company drilling a shallow gas well in the parking lot. The well resulted in never having a fuel bill again. Oil and gas seepage is a completely natural thing that nature just does.
I’d be astonished if oil or methane wasn’t coming from the Gulf floor. It’s the and has been for thousands of years.
This is just another attempt by liberals and their yellow press to run around yelling, “The sky is falling.”
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