Now as sheens of oil are seen heading to shore in Louisiana, and fisherman are told at townhall meetings that they can’t ask questions or they’ll be arrested, BP is offering a ‘new solution’ which is every bit as well thought out as their shutoff valve. They are dropping ‘dispersants’ onto the water, a heavy chemical that will bond with the oil molecules and sink them to the bottom of the ocean until they ‘dissipate’. Good news if you’re a bird or an alligator, not such good news if you’re a dolphin or a blue crab. Or shrimp. Or plankton.Or anything that eats shrimp or plankton.
Or anything that eats anything that eats shrimp or plankton.
Never mind. There’s no good news. This is a different idea, but it’s still a horrible idea. Today the president will visit the sight and lets just hope he has an environmentalist sitting next to him giving him the truth about the ‘long view’ of this disaster — one that gets longer every minute of every day oil continues to pump into the sea.
Environmentalist Richard Charter of the Defenders of Wildlife organization said the oil leak could cause damage that would last decades. “This event is a self-feeding fire,” Charter said. “It is so big and expanding so fast that it’s pretty much beyond human response that can be effective. … You’re looking at a long-term poisoning of the area. Ultimately, this will have a multidecade impact.”
There are good people who want to help, and who have dealt with these issues before – never on this scale. Jay Holcomb of the International Bird Rescue & Research Center is in Louisiana, ready with a team to treat oiled birds. (IBRRC is the organization where Worth A Dam’s Cheryl Reynolds works and volunteers). There is a good article about the preparations here, but its important to remember that these skills have never been required for this duration. Rescue workers are used to doing amazing things working very hard and very fast for a sustained (finite) period of time. This will require waves of workers in succession, spelling each other and training the new comers along the coastline from Louisiana to Florida. Even if every bird rescue team in each of our 50 states works nonstop for a week there would barely be enough people to cover this 1500 mile job. This may go on well past labor day.
Still, now’s the time to show support. I think a disaster of this magnitude has a narrow window for getting our attention. At first the American people aren’t sure how serious it is and we don’t spend that much time talking about it. Then we become horrified and paralyzed with how serious it is and we can’t stand to talk about it any more. This weekend is probably the ‘sinking in’ tipping point. Before you get overwhelmed, can I tell you how important this area is to migrating birds? It’s the nesting area for hundreds of thousands of shorebirds, and the stopping grounds for exhausted migrators who have narrowly made their way over the gulf. Now is a great time to take action. Any support will be appreciated. Donations to IBRRC can be made here. Pass this along to friends and family so they can be comforted by knowing they’re helping too.
It isn’t enough. Not for all the birds and turtles and hermit crabs and sea bass and sperm whales. But its something. And if every state, from California to Alaska, sends trained volunteers to the site they can keep the cleanup effort sustained for a little bit longer. Every state’s residents can donate to the volunteer organization they know best and let it do its job a little bit longer. It isn’t enough by a long shot, but it can make enough of a difference that this very hard work might be a little more possible.
Please help. Other ways are listed here:
Meanwhile, The Associated Press reported that offshoots from the spill had made their way into South Pass, an important channel through the salt marshes of Southeastern Louisiana that is a breeding ground for crabs oysters, shrimp and redfish sold by a number of small seafood businesses dependent on healthy marshland for their livelihood. “This is the very first sign of oil I’ve heard of inside South Pass,” Bob Kenney, a charter boat captain in Venice, told the AP. “It’s crushing, man, it’s crushing.”
Seabirds and fish are also endangered by the Deepwater Horizon spill as well as the coastal marshes that foster the growth of scores of species of wildlife.There was concern that if the spill is not plugged, oil could seep into the Gulf Stream, the current that warms seawater and influences the climate in places as remote as Newfoundland and Europe. If that happens, slicks of oil could travel around the thumb-like tip of Florida and make it way to the eastern beaches.
“It will be on the East Coast of Florida in almost no time,” Hans Graber, executive director of the University of Miami’s Center for Southeastern Tropical Advanced Remote Sensing, told The Associated Press. “I don’t think we can prevent that. It’s more of a question of when rather than if.”
Oil Spill Options Weighed: New York Times
