Audubon Oil Spill Response Team Update: Oil is going but isn't gone

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A young Brown Pelican balances on boom still strung around the island where it was hatched and grew up.
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Since the provisional capping of the Macondo well July 15, images of oil-soaked birds have begun to fade from newspapers and TV screens. Indeed, it appears that for birds, the risk of direct contact with oil is decreasing as escaped oil continues breaking down in the environment.

But oil persists on islands, in marshes and on beaches across the northern Gulf Coast. According to the federal government’s own figures, 659 miles of Gulf Coast shoreline are still oiled – 133 miles moderately to heavily so and 526 miles with “light to trace oil impacts.” Six hundred and fifty miles is the distance between Atlanta and Baltimore.
Last week in Louisiana, Melanie Driscoll and I observed oil-saturated sand – often buried under a layer of clean sand – on islands including Grand Isle and Raccoon Island.


Melanie Driscoll examines oil-saturated sand on Grand Isle.
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Describing the experience on Raccoon Island, Melanie wrote: “I scraped the flat side of my gloved hand across the sand, and, half an inch down, the sand turned black. <…> I scraped down once, twice, and a third time, and kept pulling up oiled sand. I was near the water’s edge, and the hole I was digging quickly filled with oily water.”

Much of the oil that has soaked into Gulf Coast beaches and marshes will remain untouched by cleanup crews. That government figure of 659 miles will not dwindle to zero as the response drags on. Oil will stay in the environment and will continue to affect birds and other wildlife.


Oil oozes up from underneath the sand on a Grand Isle, La., beach, threatening birds and other wildlife.
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Birds may come into contact with the oil if it is exposed by tides, if it leaches out into the environment or as they probe with sensitive bills into oily sand. Sand-dwelling invertebrates, on which birds and other organisms feed, will certainly be killed or affected by buried oil, and history tells us that those effects can persist for years.

More: http://magblog.audubon.org/audubon-oil-spill-response-team-update-oil-going-isnt-gone