" it could leak for years!"

[Ben Stern]

Did you see that scientist on TV say that if the next thing BP tries doesnt't stop it in August, it might leak for YEARS? :eek2:

[C-Hawk18]

Did you see that scientist on TV say that if the next thing BP tries doesnt't stop it in August, it might leak for YEARS? :eek2:

you're kidding.......a SCIENTIST said it? We're all doomed.........

[Ben Stern]

You're right. I'll wait to hear what Sarah Palin, Glen Beck and El Rushbo think.

[C-Hawk18]

You're right. I'll wait to hear what Sarah Palin, Glen Beck and El Rushbo think.

Oh Ok - since we don't want this to get political....... what was the SCIENTIST name?

[C-Hawk18]

I only have my phone but Google - Gulf Oil Could Gush for Years National Geographic. That's one source. Front page story, possibly the most reputable scientific journal in the world.

An "article" in a rag???????? come on I could figure you would find something just a bit more credible......no wait.....you're right.....the sky is falling.......the sky is falling

[Matt]

whether it leaks for another day or another decade, its too much.

[Ben Stern]

An "article" in a rag???????? come on I could figure you would find something just a bit more credible......no wait.....you're right.....the sky is falling.......the sky is falling

LOL! Yea, it's a "rag". The scientist in question is that grey-haired Asian guy from the Science Channe. I hope he is wrong and they can fix it.

[rounrtree]

I just saw a guy on WFN who has been doing flyovers over the gulf and he says neither BP or the Govt is telling us how big the spill is. He says it will get in the marshes, it will reach Fliorida, and it will come up the East Coast in the Gulf stream and areas like NC will be impacted. The sky may not be falling, but this is going to ruin the gulf for the rest of our life time. It makes me sick to think of the damage that is and will be done.......

[C-Hawk18]

Topic:


The Gulf's largest spill was in 1979, when the Ixtoc I platform off Mexico's Yucatan peninsula blew up and released 140 million gallons of oil. But that was in relatively shallow waters -- about 160 feet deep -- and much of the oil stayed on the surface where it broke down and became less toxic by the time it reached the Texas coast.


No major fish kills have been reported


Significant amounts of crude oil seep naturally from thousands of small rifts in the Gulf's floor -- as much as two Exxon Valdez spills every year, according to a 2000 report from government and academic researchers. Microbes that live in the water break down the oil.



Jim - Just wondering why you DIDN'T "BOLD" the above parts of your article.....like you did certain other parts.


It lookslike you are really searching had for Gulf Oil articles......wonder why you never found this one?.

Sea life made surprisingly fast recovery after 1979 oil spill off Mexico
By McClatchy-Tribune News Service
May 23, 2010, 1:30AM

By Tim Johnson

MEXICO CITY, Mexico -- The Ixtoc 1 oil spill in Mexico's shallow Campeche Sound three decades ago serves as a distant mirror to today's BP deepwater blowout, and marine scientists are still pondering what they learned from its aftereffects.

In terms of blowouts, Ixtoc 1 was a monster -- until the BP leak, the largest accidental spill in history. Some 3.3 million barrels of oil gushed over nearly 10 months, spreading an oil slick as far north as Texas, where gooey tar balls washed up on beaches.

Surprisingly, Mexican scientists say that Campeche Sound itself recovered rather quickly, and a sizable shrimp industry returned to normal within two years.

Scientists didn't know how ecology, climate would affect spill

Luis A. Soto, a deep-sea biologist, had earned his doctorate from the University of Miami a year before the June 3, 1979, blowout of Ixtoc 1 in 160 feet of water in the Campeche Sound, the shallow, oil-rich continental shelf off the Yucatan Peninsula.

Soto and other Mexican marine scientists feared the worst when they examined sea life in the sound once oil workers finally capped the blowout in March 1980.

"To be honest, because of our ignorance, we thought everything was going to die," Soto said.

The scientists didn't know what effects the warm temperatures of Gulf waters, intense solar radiation and other factors from the tropical ecosystem would have on the crude oil polluting the sound.

There were political implications as well; the spill pitted a furious shrimping industry, reliant on the nutrient-rich Campeche Sound, against a powerful state oil company betting its future in offshore drilling, particularly wells in the continental shelf in the Gulf of Mexico that it began developing in the late 1970s.

First evaluations found harsh effects on sea life

In the months after Ixtoc 1 was capped, scientists trawled the waters of the sound for signs of biological distress.

"I found shrimp with tumor formations in the tissue, and crabs without the pincers. These were very serious effects," Soto said.

Another Mexican marine biologist, Leonardo Lizarraga Partida, said the evaluation team began measuring oil content in the sediment, evaluating microorganisms in the water and checking on the biomass of shrimp species.

As the studies extended into a second year, scientists noticed how fast the marine environment recovered, helped by naturally occurring microbes that feasted on the oil and degraded it.

After two years, marine life had nearly returned to normal

Perhaps because of those microbes, aquatic life along the shoreline in Texas had returned to normal within three years -- even as tar balls and tar mats remained along the beaches, sometimes covered by sand, according to Wes Tunnell, a marine biologist at the Harte Research Institute of Gulf of Mexico Studies at Texas A&M University in Corpus Christi.

"We were really surprised," Lizarraga said. "After two years, the conditions were really almost normal."

The Gulf currents and conditions of the Ixtoc 1 spill helped. Unlike the BP blowout, which has spewed at least 5,000 barrels of oil a day, and perhaps many times that, at depths near 5,000 feet, the Ixtoc 1 oil gushed right to the surface, and currents slowly took the crude north as far as Texas, killing turtles, sea birds and other sea life.

"I measured 80 percent reduction in all combined species that were living in the intertidal zone," Tunnell said.

While that was severe, Tunnell noted that natural oil that seeps from the seabed releases the equivalent of one to two supertankers of crude in the Gulf of Mexico each year.

"It's what I call a chronic spill," Tunnell said. "The good side of having all that seepage out there is that we've got a huge population of microbes, bacteria that feed on petroleum products in the water and on shore. So that helps the recovery time."

Questions about long-term effects of oil dispersants

Lizarraga, who works at the Center for Scientific Research and Higher Studies of Ensenada, on the Baja California peninsula, criticized the heavy use of chemical dispersants to break up into droplets the oil gushing from the BP spill, saying it isn't yet clear how the dispersants will affect the oil-degrading microorganisms.

In the Ixtoc 1 spill, "not so many dispersants were used," he said, allowing natural processes to take their course.

Some fundamental questions remain about the volumes of oil that microorganisms can break down in an oil spill. Tunnell said long-term comprehensive studies are rarely carried out after workers finish mopping up crude oil coating beaches.

"When it's cleaned up, the studies stop," he said. "There's a lot that we don't have the real answers to."

[hackeyfly]

Seems pretty simple to me, Democrats say oil spills are bad, Republicans say no, not so bad. Every message board I read reflects this trend. Too bad I'm an independant, no one is telling me what to think so I have no opinion.
Pat in Joppa

[C-Hawk18]

Seems pretty simple to me, Democrats say oil spills are bad, Republicans say no, not so bad. Every message board I read reflects this trend. Too bad I'm an independant, no one is telling me what to think so I have no opinion.
Pat in Joppa

Looks to me like it's not only the Republicans who think oil is good. Several "Environmental Groups" seem to agree......at least as long as BP was lining their coffers with millions.....

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/2010/05/24/its-a-gusher-outrage-erupts-at-d-c-green-groups-ties-to-bp/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/23/AR2010052302164.html

[hackeyfly]

Looks to me like it's not only the Republicans who think oil is good. Several "Environmental Groups" seem to agree......at least as long as BP was lining their coffers with millions.....

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/2010/05/24/its-a-gusher-outrage-erupts-at-d-c-green-groups-ties-to-bp/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/23/AR2010052302164.html
While it's true that the NC seems to have whored itself to raise funds, I don't see anything in either article that would indicate that NC is downplaying the effects of the spill, which is the message coming from the right wing. The right wing keeps telling me that the oil is dispersing, that more oil leaks from the bottom in seeps than what we are seeing from the spill, and everyone should just relax, it ain't such a big deal. I disagree. It is a big deal. It's a big fucking nasty mess that will effect tens of thousands of loyal right-oriented southern voters. I guess we're lucky that those folks eschew public assistance, so no bailouts necessary, they'll pull themselves up by their bootstraps like real Americans and move on with their lives. So now that I think about it, I guess it really isn't that big a deal.
Pat in Joppa

[Alley Cat]

C-Hawk What's not a rag a Marvel comic book?