BP Says Gulf Will Be Fine By 2012, Science Disagrees

[Rhiannon12866]

It's been some time since we checked in on how the Gulf Coast is recovering from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, but HBO aired If God Is Willing And Da Creek Don't Rise this weekend so we're good and angry (actually, angrier). And just in time, because according to marine scientist Samantha Joye of the University of Georgia BP is (surprise!) lying about the residual oil. BP claims overseer Ken Feinberg said that the Gulf should be hunky-dory by 2012, but Joye says, "I've been to the bottom. I've seen what it looks like with my own eyes. It's not going to be fine by 2012." And she's got the pictures to prove it.

A Department of Energy scientist, working with a research grant from BP since before the spill, said that microbes were doing a "fairly fast" job of eating up all the oil. But Joye's research was more widespread, and she said the "magic microbes consumed maybe 10 percent of the total discharge, the rest of it we don't know." Joye traveled across 2,600 square miles of sea floor and cataloged the oil she found coating the bottom. "This is dead organisms because of oil being deposited on their heads," she said, and estimated that the amount of methane gas released into the water is the equivalent of about 1.5 and 3 million barrels of oil. NOAA chief Jane Lubchenco said, "even though the oil degraded relatively rapidly and is now mostly but not all gone, damage done to a variety of species may not become obvious for years to come." As of January tar balls were still washing up on the shores. However, there might be some good news...sort of.

http://gothamist.com/2011/02/21/bp_says_gulf_will_be_fine_by_2012_s.php


This Dec. 1, 2010 photo provided by the University of Georgia, made from the submarine Alvin, shows dead brittle stars on a still-damaged sea floor about 10 miles north of the BP oil rig accident. Brittle stars are normally bright orange and tightly wrapped around corals, but these were white and loose. (AP Photo/University of Georgia, Samantha Joye)