Jinx
This disaster hits close to home for me - quite literally, home for me is the Alabama Gulf Coast, even if I'm not living there at this point in my life. So, between crying fits as I imagine my beloved beaches and marshes covered in gloppy black toxic ooze, I've been doing a lot of reading and research about what's going on with this spill, and what it's effects could be.
There is already a dead zone in the Gulf around the mouth of the Mississippi River. This dead zone grows and shrinks seasonally, and is caused by fertilizer washing down the Mississippi from the Grain Belt. The fertilizer feeds bacteria and algae which bloom, die and decay, stealing the oxygen from the water and making it unlivable by marine life.
This oil spill could cause the entire northern cost of the Gulf to become a dead zone. First because the oil itself is toxic. Marine life will ingest or absorb the oil and die. The bodies will sink to the bottom where they will decay and the decay process uses up the oxygen in the surrounding water. Secondly because the oil forms a barrier across the top of the water which prevents the water from absorbing new oxygen. So, even those animals that would stay under the spill, or might be robust enough to withstand the poisons in the water column will still be at risk of suffocation.
That area provides 71% of the shrimp and oysters eaten here in the US, and 25% of the seafood overall. It is also home to endangered species like Kemp's Ridley and Loggerhead sea turtles, and it is the spawning grounds for a number of Atlantic fish species.
The Mississippi Delta (the large boot-shaped area of Louisiana south of New Orleans) has been disappearing at the rate of a football field every 30 minutes thanks to the channels cut into the marsh by oil companies. These channels allow salt water to flow into areas that were previously feed by fresh water from the Mississippi River. The plant life there can't handle the higher salinity and dies off, and the marsh becomes no more than islands of mud to be washed away by the tides without the plants to hold them together. If the oil gets back into the marshes and kills the plants the entire wetlands system, and a huge amount of Louisiana's land, could be washed away very quickly. Plaquemines parish could disappear entirely.
It is also very possible that the oil could enter the Loop Current, which is a segment of the Gulf Stream that pushes water eastward along the Mississippi, Alabama coasts, and down the western coast of Florida, around the Keys, and then into the main Gulf Stream, up along the Atlantic Coast, then over toward Europe.
No one really knows what would happen in such a situation, though some scientists have theorized that a large amounts of oil entering the northern Gulf Stream could have an effect on the world's climate.
This spill is bad, and getting worse. The best case scenario at this point is that it will take another 6 to 8 days to stop the flow, and that's if BP's untested plan to lower concrete and steel boxes over the leaks works. If it doesn't, oil could be spilling into the Gulf for the next 90 to 120 days while relief wells are being drilled. In various articles that I've read I've seen estimates ranging from the official 5,000 barrels a day, to an estimate of 20,000 to 25,000 barrels a day released by the environmental watchdog group Skytruth (based on their analysis of satellite and aerial images of the spill). I think the truth is somewhere in the middle. But whatever the flow rate, even if the flow were cut off today, the oil already in the water will have a massive, and horrible impact on the Gulf Coast, and beyond.
I'm crying for my home, for the turtles, pelicans, blue herons, oysters, dolphins, the fiddler crabs that live in the marsh grass, and for the marsh grass itself. I'm crying for the pure white beaches that will soon be a black, sticky, stinking mess. I'm crying for the fishermen, shrimpers, and oystermen, and the people like my parents, who's livelihoods depend on the tourist industry, and who's dream was always a house on the water. I'm crying for myself. And I'm crying for our entire planet.
There is already a dead zone in the Gulf around the mouth of the Mississippi River. This dead zone grows and shrinks seasonally, and is caused by fertilizer washing down the Mississippi from the Grain Belt. The fertilizer feeds bacteria and algae which bloom, die and decay, stealing the oxygen from the water and making it unlivable by marine life.
This oil spill could cause the entire northern cost of the Gulf to become a dead zone. First because the oil itself is toxic. Marine life will ingest or absorb the oil and die. The bodies will sink to the bottom where they will decay and the decay process uses up the oxygen in the surrounding water. Secondly because the oil forms a barrier across the top of the water which prevents the water from absorbing new oxygen. So, even those animals that would stay under the spill, or might be robust enough to withstand the poisons in the water column will still be at risk of suffocation.
That area provides 71% of the shrimp and oysters eaten here in the US, and 25% of the seafood overall. It is also home to endangered species like Kemp's Ridley and Loggerhead sea turtles, and it is the spawning grounds for a number of Atlantic fish species.
The Mississippi Delta (the large boot-shaped area of Louisiana south of New Orleans) has been disappearing at the rate of a football field every 30 minutes thanks to the channels cut into the marsh by oil companies. These channels allow salt water to flow into areas that were previously feed by fresh water from the Mississippi River. The plant life there can't handle the higher salinity and dies off, and the marsh becomes no more than islands of mud to be washed away by the tides without the plants to hold them together. If the oil gets back into the marshes and kills the plants the entire wetlands system, and a huge amount of Louisiana's land, could be washed away very quickly. Plaquemines parish could disappear entirely.
It is also very possible that the oil could enter the Loop Current, which is a segment of the Gulf Stream that pushes water eastward along the Mississippi, Alabama coasts, and down the western coast of Florida, around the Keys, and then into the main Gulf Stream, up along the Atlantic Coast, then over toward Europe.
No one really knows what would happen in such a situation, though some scientists have theorized that a large amounts of oil entering the northern Gulf Stream could have an effect on the world's climate.
This spill is bad, and getting worse. The best case scenario at this point is that it will take another 6 to 8 days to stop the flow, and that's if BP's untested plan to lower concrete and steel boxes over the leaks works. If it doesn't, oil could be spilling into the Gulf for the next 90 to 120 days while relief wells are being drilled. In various articles that I've read I've seen estimates ranging from the official 5,000 barrels a day, to an estimate of 20,000 to 25,000 barrels a day released by the environmental watchdog group Skytruth (based on their analysis of satellite and aerial images of the spill). I think the truth is somewhere in the middle. But whatever the flow rate, even if the flow were cut off today, the oil already in the water will have a massive, and horrible impact on the Gulf Coast, and beyond.
I'm crying for my home, for the turtles, pelicans, blue herons, oysters, dolphins, the fiddler crabs that live in the marsh grass, and for the marsh grass itself. I'm crying for the pure white beaches that will soon be a black, sticky, stinking mess. I'm crying for the fishermen, shrimpers, and oystermen, and the people like my parents, who's livelihoods depend on the tourist industry, and who's dream was always a house on the water. I'm crying for myself. And I'm crying for our entire planet.
