The 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill “devastated” life on and near the seafloor, a marine scientist has said. Studies using a submersible found a layer, as much as 10cm thick in places, of dead animals and oil, said Samantha Joye of the University of Georgia. Millions of barrels of oil spewed into the sea after a BP deepwater well ruptured in April 2010.
Professor Joye and her colleagues used the Alvin submersible to explore the bottom-most layer of the water around the well head, known as the benthos.
“Filter-feeding organisms, invertebrate worms, corals, sea fans – all of those were substantially impacted – and by impacted, I mean essentially killed.
“Another critical point is that detrital feeders like sea cucumbers, brittle stars that wander around the bottom, I didn’t see a living (sea cucumber) around on any of the wellhead dives. They’re typically everywhere, and we saw none.”
Organisms on the seafloor stimulate the activity of micro-organisms and oxygenate the sediments, two tasks at the bottom of the aquatic food chain that will inevitably have longer-term effects on species nearer the surface – including the ones we eat.
Professor Joye noted that after the Exxon Valdez spill, it took several years before it became clear that the herring industry had been destroyed.
As such, she disagrees with the assessment in February, by the administrator of BP’s $20bn (£12bn) compensation fund, that the Gulf of Mexico will have recovered from the spill by the end of 2012.
“The Gulf is resilient,” she said. “I do believe that it will recover from this insult, but I don’t think it’s going to recover fully by 2012. “I think it’s going to be 2012 before we begin to really see the fisheries implications and repercussions from this.”
– from bbc.co.uk
Please reduce use of oil.