likely this will be the third worst oil spill in history. The worst was the Arabian Gulf/Kuwait in 1991 – Saddam’s forces deliberately dumping oil into the gulf to thwart landing by American troops, and the second was an offshore well off of Mexico in 1980.
Here is a google spreadsheet with data breakout. The NYT has a useful interactive graphic.
The long-term environmental effect could be catastrophic:
According to NOAA researcher Samantha Joye, the undersea oil poses a direct threat to large marine wildlife, such as fish, sharks and cetaceans, and also to the tiny stuff, including zooplankton, shrimp, corals, crabs and worms. By endangering these latter populations, the foundation of the marine food chain, the oil could have chronic long-term effects on the wider Gulf ecosystem, including the industries -- more shrimp and oysters come from the Gulf than anywhere else in the world -- that rely on them.
Read more: http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/gulf-oil-spill-impacts-460610#ixzz0q71CHu5U
The instant I heard that the oil was sinking, my heart went with it. My mind resists even thinking about the long-term consequences of poisoned zooplankton. When the bottom of the food chain goes, everything else follows.
I pity our children and wish we'd gone back to the Gulf coast more often, so they'd remember what it should look like. Such beauty, being devastated.
It's times like these that I suspect mother nature is pulling back her hand to throw an epidemic at us, to reduce the pestilence caused by homo sapiens. It's what she does with other species; why should we think we're any different?
Posted by: Josette | June 07, 2010 at 10:20 AM