Oil mats after BP spill pose long-term ecosystem threat: study
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The civil engineering study -- conducted prior to, during and after the tropical storm's landfall on Alabama beaches -- indicated the spill's remnants remained largely unchanged 17 months after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded and sank off the coast of Louisiana.
The data directly linked the recently deposited tarballs to the 2010 event that resulted in more than 200 million gallons of oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico from BP PLC's Macondo well.
"The data question the validity of the widely held belief that submerged oil from the Deepwater Horizon accident is substantially weathered and thus depleted of most polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons," the study said.
"Also, it supports the hypothesis that submerged oil may continue to pose some level of long-term risk to nearshore ecosystems," it said.
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