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On July 28, 2010, Yahoo! News Environmental Reporter John Carey submitted the following story: “Nearly two weeks after BP finally capped the biggest oil spill in U.S. history, the oil slicks that once spread across thousands of miles of the Gulf of Mexico have largely disappeared. Nor has much oil washed up on the sandy beaches and marshes along the Louisiana coast. And the small cleanup army in the Gulf has only managed to skim up a tiny fraction of the millions of gallons of oil spilled in the 100 days since the Deepwater Horizon rig went up in flames.”
The article went on to quote experts that claimed some of the oil had evaporated (as much as 40 percent). One expert added that the toxic components that are more volatile are likely to evaporate quickly. Another expert mentioned that high winds would help further, and still another said nature’s own cleaning system would be primarily responsible due to the presence of microbes. “The microbes break down the hydrocarbons in oil to use as fuel to grow and reproduce. A bit of oil in the water is like a feeding frenzy, causing microbial populations to grow exponentially,” he said. Cornell University ecologist Richard Howarth, who worked on the Exxon Valdez spill, said that typically there are enough microbes in the ocean to consume half of any oil spilled in a month or two, and that such microbes have been found in every ocean of the world. He went on to say that there are reasons to think that the process may occur more quickly in the Gulf than in other large bodies of water.
About Face
Isn’t this all wonderfully optimistic news? I had no idea there was such an upside and such a reason to feel good about the earth’s ability to recover after what has been labeled an unparalleled crisis. Here’s a quick question: “Where has this positive outlook been?”