catastrofe con derrame de petroleo

aherreracr dijo:

tampoco hay que irse al histerismo,

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Weeks ago, before engineers pumped in mud and cement to plug the gusher, scientists began finding specks of oil in crab larvae plucked from waters across the Gulf coast.

The government said last week that three-quarters of the spilled oil has been removed or naturally dissipated from the water. But the crab larvae discovery was an ominous sign that crude had already infiltrated the Gulf's vast food web - and could affect it for years to come.

"It would suggest the oil has reached a position where it can start moving up the food chain instead of just hanging in the water," said Bob Thomas, a biologist at Loyola University in New Orleans. "Something likely will eat those oiled larvae ... and then that animal will be eaten by something bigger and so on."

Tiny creatures might take in such low amounts of oil that they could survive, Thomas said. But those at the top of the chain, such as dolphins and tuna, could get fatal "megadoses."

Marine biologists routinely gather shellfish for study. Since the spill began, many of the crab larvae collected have had the distinctive orange oil droplets, said Harriet Perry, a biologist with the University of Southern Mississippi's Gulf Coast Research Laboratory.

"In my 42 years of studying crabs I've never seen this," Perry said.
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She wouldn't estimate how much of the crab larvae are contaminated overall, but said about 40 percent of the area they are known to inhabit has been affected by oil from the spill.

Tulane University researchers are investigating whether the splotches also contain toxic chemical dispersants that were spread to break up the oil but have reached no conclusions, biologist Caz Taylor said.

If large numbers of blue crab larvae are tainted, their population is virtually certain to take a hit over the next year and perhaps longer, scientists say.

How large the die-off would be is unclear, Perry said. An estimated 207 million gallons of oil have spewed into the Gulf since an April 20 drilling rig explosion triggered the spill, and thousands of gallons of dispersant chemicals have been dumped.

Scientists will be focusing on crabs because they're a "keystone species" that play a crucial role in the food web as both predator and prey, Perry said.

washingtonpost.com

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But their survival could drop even lower if the larvae run into oil and dispersants.

"Crabs are very abundant. I don't think we're looking at extinction or anything close to it," said Taylor, one of the researchers who discovered the orange spots.

Still, crabs and other estuary-dependent species such as shrimp and red snapper could feel the effects of remnants of the spill for years, Perry said.

There could be some mortality, but how much is impossible to say at this point," said Vince Guillory, biologist manager with the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.

Perry, Taylor and Condrey will be among scientists monitoring crabs for negative effects such as population drop-offs and damage to reproductive capabilities and growth rates.

Crabs are big business in the region. In Louisiana alone, some 33 million pounds are harvested annually, generating nearly $300 million in economic activity, Guillory said.

But fishermen who can make a six-figure income off crabs in a good year now are now idled - and worried about the future.

"If they'd let us go out and fish today, we'd probably catch crabs," said Glen Despaux, 37, who sets his traps in Louisiana's Barataria Bay. "But what's going to happen next year, if this water is polluted and it's killing the eggs and the larvae? I think it's going to be a long-term problem."

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Obama administration officials promised Sunday to remain focused on the Gulf Coast -- punishing BP for the worst oil spill in U.S. history, and cleaning up what remains of the mess.

"We have the suspicion that BP may want to get out of this restoration," Robert Phuong Nguyen, a fisherman and father of six, said in a community meeting held by Navy Secretary Ray Mabus in Buras. Obama has put Mabus in charge of the gulf's long-term restoration.

Through a translator, Nguyen listed a stream of worries: "The cleanup hasn't been done completely. Who will assure us that the seafood will be safe? If you really care about us, please pay attention. Because after this disaster, there will be a lot of marriage separation and suicide. If the government really cares, please look over our situation."

On NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday, White House climate and energy czar Carol M. Browner defended the administration's finding that three-quarters of the 4.9 million barrels (205.8 million gallons) of oil has either disappeared or is in the process of disappearing.

Asked if BP had concurred with that calculation of the total oil that escaped -- a key number, since the oil company's punishment might depend on the size of the spill -- Browner said: "I think BP has been silent. But that doesn't matter. We will hold them accountable."

But a harder question is: What's next? The problem of how to wind down the massive cleanup effort -- now as much an economic lifeline as an attack on the oil -- is so sensitive that last week neither BP nor the federal government gave specifics about it

For Acy Cooper, a shrimper from Venice, La., weekly checks from BP had replaced income lost when large sections of the gulf were closed. But then his 25-boat task force shrunk to 21, to 12, to nine. And he wasn't one of the nine.

Cooper says that leaves him in a hole; shrimp-trawling season won't start for one week. And even then, he worries that the remaining oil could turn up in somebody's net and ruin his business all over again.

"If we get these shrimp and they get one person sick, you know how long it will take us to come back?" Cooper said at the meeting with Mabus. To prove his point that oil was still out there, he held up a Gatorade bottle filled with oil taken from a nearby marsh. "We ain't through the cleanup. We can't go into recovery. It is not recovery. Somebody's lying."

As oil spill cleanup shifts gears, gulf residents fear they'll be forgotten

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Obama administration officials promised Sunday to remain focused on the Gulf Coast -- punishing BP for the worst oil spill in U.S. history, and cleaning up what remains of the mess.

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peyistez mecayo dijo:

Pura politiqueria con miras a impulsar su agenda.

Fue incluso mas grande el derrame del Exxon Valdez, en cantidad de crudo y en daño ambiental lo supera con creces.

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MZM dijo:

Por la sangre de Cristo....

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peyistez mecayo dijo:

Ya le puse uno que fue mucho peor que este: el Exxon Valdez...busque en Google ud que es experto en eso...

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peyistez mecayo dijo:

Ya le puse uno que fue mucho peor que este: el Exxon Valdez...busque en Google ud que es experto en eso...

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Deepwater Horizon oil spill - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

An oil leak was discovered on the afternoon of April 22 when large oil slick began to spread at the former rig site.[34] According to the Flow Rate Technical Group the leak amounted to about 4.9 million barrels (205.8 million gallons) of oil exceeding the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill as the largest ever to originate in U.S.-controlled waters and the 1979 Ixtoc I oil spill as the largest spill in the Gulf of Mexico.[14]

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Ponch 2.0 dijo:

Increíble que haya alguien que trate de minimizar el impacto ambiental de este derrame de petróleo.

Y más increíble todavía que lo haga insinuando que el del Exxon Valdez fué peor.

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So far, the teams have collected nearly 3,000 dead birds, but fewer than half of them were visibly oiled; some may have died from eating oil-contaminated food, but others may have simply died naturally at a time when the Gulf happened to be crawling with carcass seekers. In any case, the Valdez may have killed as many as 435,000 birds.

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Anti-oil politicians, anti-Obama politicians and underfunded green groups all have obvious incentives to accentuate the negative in the Gulf. So do the media, because disasters drive ratings and sell magazines; those oil-soaked pelicans you saw on TV (and the cover of TIME)

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peyistez mecayo dijo:

Hablando de burradas y gente que llega solo a cagarse en los temas.
Preguntele a Time sobre la exageracion que se ha hecho:

The BP Spill: Has the Damage Been Exaggerated?



El desastre ecologico en el Exxon fue muchismo peor, principalmente porque fue un solo vertido de crudo de golpe, por la cercania con la costa y la dificultad para accesar al sitio, si bien es menor la cantidad de crudo, el impacto ambiental no tiene comparacion.

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