Saturday, June 26, 2010
The Earth does take care of itself
I found this story this morning about another oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that was much worse than what we are experiencing now. It spilled oil for 11 months before being contained. I know it is not good, but it is not the end of life as we know it.
The Ixtoc Spill 30 Years Later
June 25, 2010 - 11:24 AM | by: Adam HousleyAmidst the thick mangroves, under the turquoise tranquil waters and along the shoreline of Mexico's Yucatan peninsula, the world's worst peacetime oil spill once hit here and more than 30 years later, there are still a few signs of Ixtoc.
The massive spill in June of 1979 bares striking similarity to the BP Horizon Spill still gushing into the Gulf as a blowout preventer malfunctioned failing to stop the flow of oil that would eventually dump nearly 3 and a half million barrels into the Bay of Campeche. The oil wouldn't just blanket the coastline here in Mexico, but eventually it would cover more than 160 miles of Texas beaches.
"It was a fairly similar to the one today as we understand. It too was a blowout preventor that malfunctioned 50 miles north of the Mexican coast in the city of Ciudad Carmen in about 170 ft of water. Ixtoc blew from the 3rd of June 1979, to the 23rd of March 1980, almost 10 months. It was 140 million gallons in total the largest peacetime spill that has ever been recorded in history," says Dr. Wes Tunnell a marine biologist at Texas A&M Corpus Christi.
Dr. Tunnell was a new professor on the Texas coast at the time and has studied the aftermath over the coarse of the last 30 years. "I feel that learning from the past that we know the sandy beaches will recover from 2 to 3 years, or maybe a little longer. The ones that I’m worried about are the salt marshes of the Mississippi Delta, particularly the eastern side, where the oil is starting to come in now. Those salt marshes are a ten on a scale on a 1 to 10, they will be the most damaged and the toughest to clean up."
If the aftermath from Ixtoc is any indication, the environment and its recovery process will surprise many worried about the future. Marine biologists feared the Gulf would be ruined from the oil, but much of it repaired itself within two or three years.
# posted by Ingineer66 @ 6/26/2010 10:50:00 AM 
Comments:
<< Home
I hope that turns out to be right. We don't even know how much oil this time as BP has blocked independent groups from assessing the flow. The concern from what I have heard is the size of this reservoir of oil and the possibility of a build up of methane gas causing an explosion. The problem with all these things is each expert has a different take.
There is also concern as to how safe it is for the workers to be helping clean it up without protective gear. I guess after the Valdez, many of them had permanent health problems.
There is also concern as to how safe it is for the workers to be helping clean it up without protective gear. I guess after the Valdez, many of them had permanent health problems.
The workers I have seen on TV have protective gear on. Anything petroleum based can be nasty stuff, but I wonder how many of them smoked for 25 years and then were suddenly sick from the oil spill. I know some people probably had legitimate claims but many are not. Kind of like the silicone breast implants or Gulf War Syndrome. Some is real and some is just finding an easy target.
The methane is what caused the original explosion on the drilling ship. It is a big problem but hopefully they can handle it. While horrible, I am confident that the earth will heal. Kind of like Mt. St. Helens or the Yellowstone Fires, the earth is resilient.
The methane is what caused the original explosion on the drilling ship. It is a big problem but hopefully they can handle it. While horrible, I am confident that the earth will heal. Kind of like Mt. St. Helens or the Yellowstone Fires, the earth is resilient.
My son in law, who has a doctorate in marine biology (virology actually) said what you did, ingineer, that he thinks the Gulf will take care of this. The thing I think is that I hope that's so but we should quit spilling our garbage into the sea and expecting that as someday the whole thing might turn on us. The earth has before although exactly why, who knows about that one... at least among us humans
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]
