A generation-scale disaster in the Gulf.

• Author: Rader, Douglas N.
• Position: Ecology - Gulf of Mexico oil spill, 2010

OIL INDUSTRY apologists want you to believe that the British Petroleum oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico really is no big deal, as Mother Nature will clean up whatever amounts of oil the skimmers, vacuums, end corral-end-burn units miss--no harm, no foul.... noway.

The amount of oil spewed into the broader Gulf ecosystems by the time the relief wells finally stanch the flows--hopefully the mid July capping has held when you read this--will be prodigious. While exact answers never may be available, 250,000,000 to 500,000,000 gallons of oil may have erupted--as much as 50 times the Exxon Valdez spill.

Two elements magnify the impact of the disaster on marine end coastal ecosystems of the northern Gulf: the depth of the broken wellhead end its location. Oil rising through more than 5,000 feet of water exposes the entire water column as it ascends, tops out, is dispersed end weathered, end then drifts or sinks back toward the bottom. Oil pollution near the bottom, or raining back down from the plume, pollutes ancient deepwater coral reefs. Oil on the surface threatens not just sea turtles end migratory birds, but billions of smaller unseen plants and animals that form the base of ocean food webs, including larvae end other young being transported by ocean currents from spawning and hatching grounds to adult habitats. Oil in the middle depths threatens the profuse life of the "deep scattering layer"--so dense it appears on ships' sonar, and key prey for diving whales, dolphins, tunas, sharks, and billfish.

The location of the well--extremely close to world-class coastal ecosystems inshore end ocean current systems offshore that act as superhighways in the sea for baby animals--creates a situation where none of the key elements of marine ecosystems are immune from damage, and where distant critical habitats become vulnerable. Together, these two elements create ecosystem risks that are off-the-charts--dramatically greater then the lxtoc I blowout in 1979 in the cul-de-sac of the distant southeastern Gulf of Mexico.

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Even the most optimistic scenarios make clear that serious oil-based pollution is inevitable--not just oil per se, but various constituents of the toxic soup of "light, sweet crude" as it is sorted, transported, weathered, absorbed, end assimilated, altering Gulf ecosystems in myriad ways for a long time to come. Any way you slice it, the disaster has loosed in the Gulf unfathomable quantities of a wide array of...