Researchers in the Gulf of Mexico have now determined that a large plume of crude oil has made its way into a corner of the Loop Current. As you know, this deep-water current passes through the Gulf, heading east towards Florida, and then onwards into the Gulf Stream. Experts from the Miami Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies (CIMAS), the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (NOAA/AOML) carried out the studies - and continue to monitor the situation.
The team surveyed an area located in the counter clockwise rotating frontal eddy of the northeast corner of the Loop Current. The researchers have hypothesized that, once the oil had reached this location, it would head south along the eastern frontal zone of the Loop Current, down around the southern tip of Florida and then upward along the Atlantic seaboard. After moving south, the team encountered another large concentration of oil, in a new slick. They used the University of Miami's 96-foot catamaran, the RV/F.G. Walton Smith, for this investigation and were also aided by aerial survey data provided by the US Coast Guard.
Despite the assurances of some media and officials that "the chances are slim to nil" of this catastrophe impacting the Georgia shoreline, I am unable to see how it cannot given the sheer, staggering amount of oil, the whimsy of the Loop Current, the volatile weather and the length of time that this will continue. BP has now stated that the relief-well success is "tentative" and that a completion date of August may have been "optimistic".
BP is now planning to burn hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil - and this raises new concerns about the health and safety of the thousands of workers on rigs and vessels near the spill site. Once again they are "playing with fire" (pardon the pun) for this has never been attempted on this immense a scale. The incineration of vast amounts of oil (combined with the black clouds of smoke already drifting over the Gulf waters from controlled burns of surface oil) create a whole new world of fears regarding pollution and safety.
Meanwhile Cuban officials have started preparations to protect their coastline from the spreading BP oil spill in the Gulf. Oil patches have been spotted about 100 miles northwest of Cuba (the northwest shoreline is a highly critical feeding and breeding ground for species like sea turtles and manatees).
Adding to the already devastating presence of the 2.5 million gallons* per day of oil are more than 580,000 gallons of chemical dispersants (Corexit) applied to the surface of the slick and directly into the subsea stream of gushing crude. What that means is that life in the entire water column is being exposed. The dispersants are used to help keep the oil away from shorelines by breaking it up into smaller clumps, some of which will be consumed by microbes and some of which will eventually sink to the ocean floor (death by mass suffocation?).
The problem is that those microbes end up consuming oxygen in the process. The toxicity alone or the BOD (biological oxygen demand) problem alone are substantial issues: when you start adding the two together, the result is unimaginable.
The Gulf already suffers from a massive "dead zone" which forms every spring when agricultural runoff carried out to sea by the Mississippi River causes algae to bloom and devour the oxygen in shallower waters. Mobile marine species usually migrate east of the dead zone - but, sadly, that happens to be the area most directly affected by the oil slick.
*(Newly disclosed documents obtained by the AP show that after the Deepwater Horizon sank, BP made a "worst-case estimate" of 2.5 million gallons per day flowing into the Gulf of Mexico. That is far higher than it had said publicly until this week, when the U.S. government released its own estimate of the amount).
And so we wait - and trust that the GaDNR/USCG will put a comprehensive and effective plan in place to, somehow, protect our own waters. Given the information above, I fail to see how that could possibly be accomplished for when the oil/dispersants reach us the toxic stew will be, for the most part, invisible - and yet lethal to the fragile shorelines, species and marshland. I urge everyone to continue to write to every public official in Georgia. Demand that any plans to allow offshore drilling along our coastline be aborted and that funding be made available for the exploration and development of sustainable sources of clean energy.
To break this cycle of devastation we all need to turn away from the rampant addiction to oil: by reducing the demand, the power of the massive oil corporations will be weakened. As BP and others have polluted our world, so their grip on our governments and life-styles have polluted our system. And it can be done. Refuse mindless waste such as plastic bags (12 million barrels of oil per year), bottled water (17 million barrels per year) and over-packaged products. Think carefully about your purchases and choices and take a moment to write/call the public officials who will shape our future.
The team surveyed an area located in the counter clockwise rotating frontal eddy of the northeast corner of the Loop Current. The researchers have hypothesized that, once the oil had reached this location, it would head south along the eastern frontal zone of the Loop Current, down around the southern tip of Florida and then upward along the Atlantic seaboard. After moving south, the team encountered another large concentration of oil, in a new slick. They used the University of Miami's 96-foot catamaran, the RV/F.G. Walton Smith, for this investigation and were also aided by aerial survey data provided by the US Coast Guard.
Despite the assurances of some media and officials that "the chances are slim to nil" of this catastrophe impacting the Georgia shoreline, I am unable to see how it cannot given the sheer, staggering amount of oil, the whimsy of the Loop Current, the volatile weather and the length of time that this will continue. BP has now stated that the relief-well success is "tentative" and that a completion date of August may have been "optimistic".
BP is now planning to burn hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil - and this raises new concerns about the health and safety of the thousands of workers on rigs and vessels near the spill site. Once again they are "playing with fire" (pardon the pun) for this has never been attempted on this immense a scale. The incineration of vast amounts of oil (combined with the black clouds of smoke already drifting over the Gulf waters from controlled burns of surface oil) create a whole new world of fears regarding pollution and safety.
Meanwhile Cuban officials have started preparations to protect their coastline from the spreading BP oil spill in the Gulf. Oil patches have been spotted about 100 miles northwest of Cuba (the northwest shoreline is a highly critical feeding and breeding ground for species like sea turtles and manatees).
Adding to the already devastating presence of the 2.5 million gallons* per day of oil are more than 580,000 gallons of chemical dispersants (Corexit) applied to the surface of the slick and directly into the subsea stream of gushing crude. What that means is that life in the entire water column is being exposed. The dispersants are used to help keep the oil away from shorelines by breaking it up into smaller clumps, some of which will be consumed by microbes and some of which will eventually sink to the ocean floor (death by mass suffocation?).
The problem is that those microbes end up consuming oxygen in the process. The toxicity alone or the BOD (biological oxygen demand) problem alone are substantial issues: when you start adding the two together, the result is unimaginable.
The Gulf already suffers from a massive "dead zone" which forms every spring when agricultural runoff carried out to sea by the Mississippi River causes algae to bloom and devour the oxygen in shallower waters. Mobile marine species usually migrate east of the dead zone - but, sadly, that happens to be the area most directly affected by the oil slick.
*(Newly disclosed documents obtained by the AP show that after the Deepwater Horizon sank, BP made a "worst-case estimate" of 2.5 million gallons per day flowing into the Gulf of Mexico. That is far higher than it had said publicly until this week, when the U.S. government released its own estimate of the amount).
And so we wait - and trust that the GaDNR/USCG will put a comprehensive and effective plan in place to, somehow, protect our own waters. Given the information above, I fail to see how that could possibly be accomplished for when the oil/dispersants reach us the toxic stew will be, for the most part, invisible - and yet lethal to the fragile shorelines, species and marshland. I urge everyone to continue to write to every public official in Georgia. Demand that any plans to allow offshore drilling along our coastline be aborted and that funding be made available for the exploration and development of sustainable sources of clean energy.
To break this cycle of devastation we all need to turn away from the rampant addiction to oil: by reducing the demand, the power of the massive oil corporations will be weakened. As BP and others have polluted our world, so their grip on our governments and life-styles have polluted our system. And it can be done. Refuse mindless waste such as plastic bags (12 million barrels of oil per year), bottled water (17 million barrels per year) and over-packaged products. Think carefully about your purchases and choices and take a moment to write/call the public officials who will shape our future.
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