In gulf oil spill's long reach, ecological damage could last decades

[UpInArms]

Source: Washington Post

Snorkeling along a coral reef near Veracruz, Mexico, in 2002, Texas biologist Wes Tunnell spotted what looked like a ledge of rock covered in sand, shells, algae and hermit crabs. He knew, from years of research at the reef, that it probably wasn't a rock at all. He stabbed it with his diving knife. His blade pulled up gunk.

"Sure enough, it was tar from the Ixtoc spill," Tunnell said.

Twenty-three years earlier, in 1979, an oil well named Ixtoc I had a blowout in 150 feet of water in the southern Gulf of Mexico. The Mexican national oil company Pemex tried to kill the well with drilling mud, and then with steel and lead balls dropped into the wellbore. It tried to contain the oil with a cap nicknamed The Sombrero. Finally, after 290 days, a relief well plugged the hole with cement and the spill came to an end -- but only after polluting the gulf with 138 million gallons of crude.

That remains the worst accidental oil spill in history -- but the Deepwater Horizon blowout off the Louisiana coast is rapidly gaining on it.

<snip>

The Exxon Valdez spill of 11 million gallons killed as many as 700,000 sea birds and 5,000 sea otters initially, but even 21 years later, populations of sea otters in areas of Prince William Sound haven't recovered. The Pacific herring population collapsed after the spill for reasons that remain in dispute among scientists. Two intensely studied pods of killer whales in the sound suffered heavy losses in the spill and have struggled since. One of the two pods has no more reproductive females. It is doomed to extinction.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/05/AR2010060503987_pf.html

[Trillo]

1. Wage a war against narcotics on the land masses;

spread narcotics like mad below the sea.

[Tutankhamun]

4. You mean "drugs". "Narcotic" is another word for opiate.

[Trillo]

5. I believe you got the message. The word "narcotic" was used in the OP's article.

Words are never or rarely perfect. I chose the word I did because it was the same word used in the article, though if I remember correctly, the precise phrase was "narcotic-like effect" or effects.

Had I used the word "drugs", as in the phrase War on Drugs, readers might not understand the relevance to the article linked in the OP.

Narcotics are generally considered "controlled substances", that in order to obtain one must go to the doc, and even then there are difficult hoops to jump through for both the patient and the doc: or one gets such things from "illegal" sources. Such illegal sources, when discovered, almost always results in prison for the patient and the supplier, if known, the former whom is no longer considered a patient, instead a "user" or "addict".

Anyway, isn't it curious that oil, when deposited for longish periods of time on the sea floor, results in ocean life, that live in close proximity to it, who show "narcotic like" symptoms in observed behavior, creating the question about how similar this crude, or asphaltum, is to controlled substances. Remember, we humans are also breathing the crap, whether we want to be "drug users" or not. The street a few feet from my house is paved with "asphalt". You could say most of us sleep right next to it and-or are surrounded by it.

Living in such close quarters to asphalt, and continually breathing the evaporative gases of other petroleum products, could explain all the craziness, or chaos, that leaders in various hierarchies are increasingly displaying. Craziness such as, but certainly not limited to, making some drugs illegal because of their addictive effects, while simultaneously forcing such similar effects on all of us.

The area of California I live in is using zoning ordinances to close down otherwise legal medical-marijuana dispensaries, while simultaneously approving the paving of streets with asphalt. Perhaps city and county supervisors have been breathing too much evaporated petroleum 24/7.

[Scuba]

2. Decades? More like millennia.

[HillbillyBob]

3. I thinkin we are doomed by own greed and gluttony

This so called war on drugs..is a war on the poor not poverty.

We keep pumping or mining carbon like the climate damage does not matter what utter fools as if carbon wont fuck up the climate like it did before it was sequestered. This stupid comeback that its 'natuaral' well so is cyanide a natural product of bitter almonds and will kill you so fast...

Not sound like a jerk. We decided to go on an energy diet around 7 yrs ago. When we moved in to this house we bought it used lots of electric..we are down to 1100 kilo watt hrs per month from 3300.
Everything we buy, we ask ourselves "Do we really need this?" "How long will it last" "Can we make do with something less costly in oil?" Pretty much all plastics and fertilizers are made from oil or the manufacture is powered by oil.

Can I heat the house with the sun and not have to go hungry.
I have been scrounging bits to build a solar furnace..so far I have about 30% of the parts..for 0$. After It is built I will publish the plans, not like there is a patent on a black box within a glass box with mirrors and insulation. I will connect duct up to run an oven and a second to the crawl space under the house and can cannect that into the air handler

The main question we should be asking ourselves..is
"How can we stop burning stuff for energy?" and "Why are we still burning shit?"
I see folks out burning leaves..compost them it keeps more of the carbon in the ground..instead I get stupid cow looks from people when I say anything about burning..and the "well thats what we have always done." Duh just because its how it has been done, does not mean that it's the right way to go about it..

I know a lot of homes or commercial buildings or condos are not situated to take advantage of solar water or solar power.
Those who are should really think about biting the bullet now because when the real crunch comes it will be too late to build a solar oven since 'everyone' will be after the same materials.

http://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/category_alternative-renewable-energy+solar-solutions+solar-air-collectors-heating this set up can cost from 1200 to 3000$ but can knock off a substantial amount from your winter heating bills.