BP oil not degrading on Gulf floor, study says

[villager]

Source: AP

BP oil not degrading on Gulf floor, study says

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) -- Researchers say tar balls washed on to Gulf of Mexico beaches by Tropical Storm Lee prove that oil left over from last year's BP spill isn't breaking down as quickly as some assume.

Auburn University said Tuesday that its study shows the tar that hit Alabama beaches earlier this month appeared relatively fresh and unchanged from when oil first poured into the Gulf during the spill.

The study concludes that mats of oil are still submerged on the seabed, and it says the material could pose a long-term threat to coastal ecosystems.

BP isn't commenting on the study.

<snip>


Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_GULF_OIL_SPILL?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

[TheWraith]

1. Oil sitting on the ocean floor will be the last thing to break down, for two main reasons.

One: at those depths, the gulf is vastly colder than the surface waters. Colder means fewer bacteria, which play a crucial role in breaking down the oil. That means that while oil on the surface could have a life measured in weeks, stuff on the ocean floor is being refrigerated. This also applies to oxygen and sunlight, both of which help things break down, but temperature is a big one.

Two: The material sunk to the bottom is likely to be that which contains the heaviest elements of the crude oil. No longer true petroleum like you'd pump out of the ground, but a sludge of tar, asphaltene, and the other thickest, heaviest constituents which have lost the light hydrocarbons out of their mixture.

[Angry Dragon]

2. And mixed with the toxic Corexit

[dipsydoodle]

4. Any corexit

would simply have disolved in the water. Its a detergent : it doesn't mix with oil.

[Thor_MN]

15. I would have to say that you appear to not know what a detergent is.

What makes a detergent useful is that it is soluble in both oil and water. If a compound did not "mix" with oil, it would be useless as an agent for dispersing oil.

[JDPriestly]

7. Yes. This was pretty obvious from the beginning.

BP did a snow job on our government. But there is no snow on the bottom of the ocean.

[glowing]

3. Eventually, its going to get washed up.. The corexit just sunk the heavier oil

so it wasn't on the surface. When the water gets stirred up with a Hurricane, its going to come to the top.

There's speculation though that the hole is leaking. Lighter crude is being found at the surface. However, news from the oil spill is almost like it never happened except for those who are directly impacted.. and then its mainly reports thru Facebook from eyewitness reporting. Its not gone and the Gulf is no where near "recovered".

[dipsydoodle]

5. If anything

It was lack of corexit which allowed it to sink.

[glowing]

11. No, it was corexit that they sprayed onto the oil as it was gushing out of the hole that

kept a lot of the oil below the surface.. Corexit caused the oil to sink.

[dipsydoodle]

Its a combination of factors

Corexit prevents slick from forming. The biproduct, yes, is that heavier stuff sinks. Its with that purpose that its used when necessary in the UK. Tar balls at the sea bed don't cause issues.

The only time its not used here is close to rocky shores - would screw limpets.

[NickB79]

30. "Tar balls on the sea bed don't cause issues."

Unless you happen to be one of the millions of sea creatures that live on the sea bed, in which case you're screwed.

[dipsydoodle]

16. Its a combination of factors

Corexit prevents slick from forming. The biproduct, yes, is that heavier stuff sinks. Its with that purpose that its used when necessary in the UK. Tar balls at the sea bed don't cause issues.

The only time its not used here is close to rocky shores - would screw limpets.

[dipsydoodle]

17. Its a combination of factors

Corexit prevents slick from forming. The biproduct, yes, is that heavier stuff sinks. Its with that purpose that its used when necessary in the UK. Tar balls at the sea bed don't cause issues.

The only time its not used here is close to rocky shores - would screw limpets.

[Phlem]

6. I wonder what's being done about it since

it isn't main stream news. For all we know we could have just fucked up our oceans for the next thousand years.
One of mans main go to sources for food.

I just hope I get a chance to fix this before my little girl becomes an adult.

:web:

-p

[Devil_Fish]

14. Sad to say that most likely both of our little girls will grow old and have children before the gulf

ever comes back. :cry: :pals:

[Uncle Joe]

8. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, villager.

[Altoid_Cyclist]

9. That third paragraph is a bit of an understatement.

Maybe if they changed "could pose a long-term threat" to "probably will pose a long-term threat".

We are a destructive species.


Oops....I meant to add this:

<Snip>

"It has been reported that the size of the Gulf oil spill is unprecedented, much greater than that of the the (land mass) of New England area combined. You have to wonder about the fate of the crude oil that has not come ashore and recovered and what long term effects such toxins will have on the food chain," Cho said. "The pollutants from these toxins are going to be there for a long time."

Cho is worried about another phenomena from the spill-- the orange sheen seen on the surface of the gulf.

"That orange sheen is a result of a chemical reaction involving the sun, the crude oil and the oil dispersants," Cho said. "But nobody knows what's in that color and how toxic the chemicals are. Companies keep the chemical makeup of the dispersants secret.

Rest of article here:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100624104806.htm

[GSLevel9]

10. oh what a surprise... and who let BP off? nt

[TheWraith]

12. Who said BP was let off?

The criminal investigations are still ongoing.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-29/bp-managers-said-to-face-u-s-review-for-manslaughter-charges.html

[GSLevel9]

13. the administration got BP to set up the slush fund

and haven't spoken a cross word to BP since...

[JackRiddler]

21. BP still exists, despite being responsible for an extermination event...

They were allowed to oversee the "clean-up."

Their damages were capped at $20 billion.

The corporate media stopped reporting on the disaster, although it was an ecological and economic Pearl Harbor event -- the kind that in a sane society would have "changed everything."

To me, that sounds like BP was let off, and allowed to continue with its reign of biospheric destruction (and plundering of the humans).

As for the criminal investigation, are you sure that you have not once again been roped into Waiting for Fitzmas?

I'll believe it when I see indictments. On any of these supposed imminent criminal investigation stories, including Goldman Sachs, Gov. Walker, and this.

[Demeter]

22. Second that

[Stella_Artois]

23. It isn't in the power of America to make BP not exist

Just saying.

[JackRiddler]

24. It is in the power of the government to take emergency measures against its US division.

They have no trouble infiltrating antiwar groups, raiding Muslim charities and seizing the assets of suspected gangster organizations. They have no trouble seizing properties of suspected drug dealers and selling them before trial. What BP created through its wanton negligence is destruction on a scale that dwarfs anything terrorists could accomplish. The costs yet to come are incalculable. The companies US assets should have been seized first, proceedings later, like some (but not other) criminals are treated.

[Nihil]

25. It could hardly do that ...

> It is in the power of the government to take emergency measures
> against its US division.

... when the same government is actively taking expensive measures
to promote even worse environmental destruction both with respect
to natural gas extraction and tar sand oil extraction.

The government is blatantly hypocritical about most things but that
would be too much even for them.


> What BP created through its wanton negligence is destruction on
> a scale that dwarfs anything terrorists could accomplish.

Terrorists - as in "all labelled terrorists over time added together" - have
never accomplished a fraction of the destruction that is enacted every single
day by corporations providing shit to consumers. BP is nothing special.

[JackRiddler]

27. I believe that argument is fallacious.

Seems to me you're saying the government has always done the wrong thing, therefore they're not credible when they do the right thing. I have to object and say: if you're doing the wrong thing, then you should stop and start doing the right thing. Hypocrisy can be corrected, step by step, by doing the right thing many times. It is not an argument for maintaining the status quo. What is "too much" is a vague concept. The question is more like, under what provision of the law can this criminal organization be seized and shut down?

Your second argument is the debatable proposition that "BP is nothing special" as one corporate criminal among many. Hardly, they're a champion among corporate criminals, and exactly the kind of target of which an example (and a start) should be made. The extermination event they caused cannot be reversed, but it is (was) an opportunity for change that would go well beyond justice against BP. It should have meant the equivalent of a war mobilization in changing the energy economy over many, many years. Instead what happened is that in the end, new drilling rights were awarded. Was this good because it wasn't hypocritical, since it was consistent with the bad way that government has always done things until now?

[No Elephants]

Lots of companies that did not have their liabilities capped have been sued out of existence.

Ditto companies that caused massive ecological disasters and were held truly and fully responsible for the clean up.

[No Elephants]

29. Lots of companies that did not have their liabilities capped have been sued out of existence.

Ditto companies that caused massive ecological disasters and were held truly and fully responsible for the clean up.

[No Elephants]

18. Tell me again how raising taxes on the rich is unjust.

Poor people don't wreck oceans.

We could confiscate every penny these oil companies have and it still wouldn't pay for what they've stolen from us and damaged.

PBS is doing a show on Mexico this week. It is written into the MEXICAN CONSTITTUTION that all natural resources below and above the ground belong to the people of Mexico. Add in, under and above "Mexican waters" (with an exception for reasonable fishing) and it will sound damned good to me.

And international waters should be governed by a body that is internationally recognized.

[Yo_Mama]

19. We do - we all do

Poor people ride in vehicles and eat food transported in vehicles and use plastics, eat food grown with fertilizers, etc.

The oil companies wouldn't be drilling if we all weren't consuming. The issue is whether there is a viable option that doesn't kill a lot of poor people!

[No Elephants]

28. When was the last time poor people caused an oil spill?

Or used yachts? Or private planes? Or limos? Or even three or four cars per four or five member family?

"The oil companies wouldn't be drilling if we all weren't consuming."

Drilling, in and of itself, did not cause the spill. Negligence and greed did. Those factors are not in play when someone heats their home, if they can afford to.

I understand your point about using local, but putting the two groups in the same basket is a false equivalency. They are not alike in their damage to air, oceans, use of resources, etc., either qualitatively or quantitatively.

And, my point was, "Tell me again why it's unfair to raise taxes on the rich."

[JackRiddler]

20. And they claimed otherwise last year why? Corporate science?

[Vinca]

26. Out of sight, out of mind.