12/11/2022 0 Comments The world after oilOceanographers have been tracking the residue from the Macondo well as it has settled on the bottom of the ocean. While aerial surveys taken in 2010 suggest tens of thousands of sea turtles were exposed to oil in coastal waters, government agencies are still gathering data and have not concluded if the spill will have long-term effects on sea turtle populations.īut perhaps the greatest unknown is what, if anything, millions of gallons of oil on the deep seafloor are doing to the overall environment of the Gulf itself. Seaside sparrows in the Gulf are also showing signs of strain, and some studies cite oil as contributing to reductions in their overall abundance. Studies suggest the diseases dolphins suffer from in places like Barataria Bay, Louisiana, could be caused by oil exposure, but direct links to the 2010 Macondo spill have not been proven. But the dolphin “mortality event,” as the government calls it, began months before the spill. Dolphins are dying at an accelerated rate along the Gulf Coast, and even more so in Louisiana where the oil hit the hardest. The spill’s effects on other species are less clear. And according to the Food and Drug Administration, tests on edible seafood show no excess hydrocarbons in the region’s food supply. Oysters are also recovering in many areas. Watch the trailer for "Blowout: The Gulf Oil Disaster"įish landings in the Gulf, the amount of fish caught by the fishing industry, have returned. Studies so far have shown a variety of negative impacts on wildlife immediately after the spill, but others show some of those species are bouncing back. Most long-term scientific studies on environmental disasters take longer than the five years that have passed. One government official familiar with the trustee’s assessment accused BP of having “cherry-picked” positive results while ignoring others, something BP denies. The trustees, a collection of government agencies tasked with determining the extent of the damage from the Macondo spill, released a statement, saying, “We know that the environmental effects of this spill are likely to last for generations.” Shortly after BP released its own five-year report that concluded the Gulf has largely recovered, the trustees of the Natural Resource Damage Assessment called BP’s report “inappropriate as well as premature.” While BP’s assessment has not been disproven, the government suggests it’s too soon to make long-term conclusions about the rebounding health of the Gulf. “And there is no data that suggests there are any long-term population-level impacts to any species.” “But they have also, according to the data, bounced back and are recovering strongly.”
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