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canvasbacksca
361 Posts |
 Posted - 07/29/2010 : 09:40:38
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Earlier, I posted that I thought that all of the "doom and gloom" about the spill was unwarranted. Now that the spill has been stopped, that assessment appears correct ( it's worth reading the entire article ):
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2007202-2,00.html
EXCERPT:
"LSU coastal scientist Eugene Turner has dedicated much of his career to documenting how the oil industry has ravaged Louisiana's coast with canals and pipelines, but he says the BP spill will be a comparative blip; he predicts that the oil will destroy fewer marshes than the airboats deployed to clean up the oil. "We don't want to deny that there's some damage, but nothing like the damage we've seen for years," he says."
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"But Van Heerden and Kemp were right about Katrina, and when it comes to BP, they're sticking to the evidence gathered by the spill response teams — which all include a state and a federal representative as well as a BP contractor. So far, the teams have collected nearly 3,000 dead birds, but less than half 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. The teams have found 488 dead sea turtles, which is unfortunate, but only 17 were visibly oiled; otherwise, they have found only one other dead reptile in the entire Gulf. "We can't speak to the long-term impacts, but Ivor is just saying what all of us are seeing," says Amy Holman, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration director for Alaska who is working on Van Heerden's assessment team in the Gulf."
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Duck Soup
1866 Posts |
Posted - 07/29/2010 : 10:56:12
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| Nice to read a contrary view and like many of us seniors, I'm always skeptical, specially of doom and gloom prognosticators. I do hope that the opportunities created by this event are remembered in a positive way 20 years from now. Many people in Alaska are still bitter about the Valdez. |
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canvasbacksca
361 Posts |
Posted - 07/29/2010 : 11:28:47
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I agree, Duck Soup. The Exxon Valdez spill was of heavy crude in cold water ( 4C ), whereas the BP spill is of light crude in very warm water ( 30 C ), which means that the oil from the latter will degrade much faster. Also, the Valdez spill was in a relatively small and contained area whereas the BP spill, although much bigger in volume, was over a longer time and in a vastly bigger area.
I also think that Gulf Coast residents have recieved far more Federal, State, and Industry assistance than was the case for the EV spill in Alaska.
But, the bottom line is that predictions of large kills of migrating ducks this fall/winter in Louisiana are gonna come true -- not from oil, but from shotguns as they always do. Louisiana hunters kill, in total, 3000 ducks/hour during their season and, in total, kill more ducks than are killed in all of Canada! |
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singlemalt
191 Posts |
Posted - 07/29/2010 : 11:39:48
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This is all somewhat encouraging. Like DS I am getting skeptical of the media industry which seems to have evolved around trying to get us to panic every time something goes wrong.
In the early days of this current crisis they were talking about damage that would last centuries. Recently I have been reading that there was a very similar spill from a rig in Mexican waters of the Gulf in the late '70's which also flowed thousands of barrels a day into the ocean for months. That was only 30 years ago, hardly centuries, and yet the Gulf has healed itself enough that none of us even remember it now.
I still think the oil industry has a lot to answer for but I don't think unreasonable panic and doom and gloom thinking ever does anyone any good. |
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canvasbacksca
361 Posts |
Posted - 07/29/2010 : 12:37:40
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Yes, Singlemalt,damage from the Ixtoc spill in 1979 was minimal and the area recovered rapidly, which was why I was optimistic that similar would be the case with this spill.
I agree that the oil industry must share some of the blame for this, but so, too, does the US Gov't. for lax standards and poor enforcement and, more importantly, for forcing oil companies to drill in deep waters and preventing them from drilling in much shallower areas, e.g., the eastern half of the Gulf and the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts as well as preventing them from drilling in the Arctic NWR and from extracting the vast amount of oil in the oil shale in CO and WY. The latter is estimated to contain way more oil than is in Saudi Arabia. |
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kicks
40 Posts |
Posted - 07/29/2010 : 18:56:00
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that is very good news Dave , i had the opportunity to hunt in Louisiana last December along the gulf coast and the marshes there are massive with lots of channels dumping into the bay very glad to hear the damage will not be as bad as expected
we seen lots of birds and had good shooting but fell a little short of the 3000 birds an hour 
Glenn Hanson
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breakingclay
46 Posts |
Posted - 07/30/2010 : 06:27:39
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This all sounds like promising news (as compared to media reports), but no one ever seems to mention that this spill is our fault as well. If we did not have such an appetite for oil they would not be there in the first place. Back to happy thoughts, early goose is right around the corner:)
Scott
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Old Cut LongPointer
525 Posts |
Posted - 07/31/2010 : 10:06:36
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| Either way you look at it somebody had a Big Pee in the pool ? |
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BP Oil Spill
