Comments on: The Oil Is Still There

By: Bryan

Bryan — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 04:43:59 +0000

In reply to Moi;). If they are eating anything from the Gulf they have lost their minds. The oil is bad enough but the dispersant BP used carries a warning that it can cause uncontrolled bleeding. The oysters feed by filtering the water, they have already found oil in seed oysters, which are tiny, so the the full-sized ones will be worse. Tourism officials are out of their minds talking state governments into allowing this.

By: Moi;)

Moi;) — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 03:03:14 +0000

I have seen more news stories with people shucking oysters and catching fish this weekend than I care to remember. Like I’d go eat the fish from there now, just ‘cuz it’s “capped”????

By: Bryan

Bryan — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 02:24:43 +0000

That was one of my objections to they way they were using the Corexit. If you let the oil float to the surface, then things like that giant skimmer ship, A Whale, would be very effective in picking it up. By injecting it at depth, the oil stays in the water column, much of it at depths and temperatures where no one knows if the oil-eating microbes will work. Another problem is the really bad news stuff like benzene can’t evaporate. The oil underwater is much more toxic than what’s on the surface after an hour.

The only thing injecting the dispersants at depth did was hide the amount of oil coming out of the well.

By: paintedjaguar

paintedjaguar — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 02:05:50 +0000

You may have seen this Dan Froomkin story about oil+Corexit being found in crab larvae all along the Gulf Coast. Also from the Times-Picayune: Soft-shell crabs in season! Sounds delicious, but according to the Froomkin story, "Larvae are a major food source for fish and other blue crabs [...] Fish are generally able to excrete ingested oil, but inverterbrates such as crabs don't have that ability." Personally, I think I'd order something else -- maybe a nice steak. I knew that a lot of oil was still underwater but hadn't quite realized that Corexit was being injected directly into the geyser to keep the oil from ever appearing on the surface. Sort of gives the lie to all the recent talk about degradation from sun and wave action.