Joe, Fla. Researchers reported carcasses washing up daily — half being stillborn or dead infant dolphins.
The widespread pollution from the BP oil spill caused fishing closures across 88, square miles. The Gulf of Mexico is home to more than fish species, with new species continuing to be discovered. Oil and dispersed oil are toxic to all life stages of fish, and oil spills affect fish reproduction for at least decades. The BP disaster particularly threatens species that are already at risk of extinction such as Atlantic bluefin tuna, Gulf sturgeon, smalltooth sawfish and the dwarf seahorse.
The oil spill occurred during the peak spawning months for the bluefin tuna, pushing this severely overfished species closer to the brink of extinction. The spill could still extirpate our nation's smallest seahorse, the one-inch long dwarf seahorse, from much of its range, as both oil and dispersants are toxic to seahorses and the seagrass they need to survive.
Oil and dispersed oil are toxic to marine invertebrates like corals, lobsters, crabs, oysters, clams, zooplankton, starfish and sand-dwelling organisms.
The federal government stated that resources invertebrates rely on have been injured, ecological services have been disrupted, and the potential for invertebrate recovery is limited. Researchers observed dead and dying corals in deep waters southwest of the BP well, reporting that the corals were covered with a brown substance. Fishermen reported vanishing oysters and pulling up tar balls in their shrimp nets. Oiled crabs were found on beaches. For as long as oil pollution persists in the Gulf — for decades or longer — invertebrate life will feel the impacts.
Forty years after an oil spill off the coast of Massachusetts, fiddler crabs are still being harmed by persistent pollution. Scientists tracing the fate of the dispersed oil in the water column have found that oil particles are being transferred within the food web, posing ongoing risks to all Gulf marine life, including tiny invertebrates. Oil, dispersed oil and dispersants are all toxic to marine and onshore plants like seagrasses, mangroves and wetland vegetation, which provide habitat and food for many species.
Oil pollution can have long-term negative effects on plants, and oil trapped in plant roots can become re-suspended in the water column during storms. Tarballs and subsurface oil on beaches threaten terrestrial mammals such as federally protected beach mice, including the Alabama, Choctawhatchee, St.
Andrews and Perdido Key beach mice. It did not work properly. The crew had the option of diverting the mud and gas away from the rig, venting it safely through pipes over the side. Instead, the flow was diverted to a device on board the rig designed to separate small amounts of gas from a flow of mud.
The so-called mud-gas separator was quickly overwhelmed and flammable gas began to engulf the rig. This system failed. The explosion destroyed the control lines the crew were using to attempt to close safety valves in the blowout preventer. However, the blowout preventer has its own safety mechanism in which two separate systems should have shut the valves automatically when it lost contact with the surface.
One system seems to have had a flat battery and the other a defective switch. Consequently, the blowout preventer did not close. Crucially, the Obama administration also beefed up safety rules for the offshore oil industry, including checks on blowout preventers like the one that failed on the Deepwater Horizon. But those rules have been weakened under the Trump administration.
Checks by the BSEE have been reduced as well. According to a study by the Center for American Progress, a liberal policy institute, the number of safety inspections the agency has conducted on rigs, platforms, pipelines, and other facilities during the last three years of the Trump administration decreased by 13 percent.
The same study showed that enforcement actions against offshore drillers had fallen by 38 percent. Meanwhile, offshore drilling is only going deeper and getting more dangerous. The Deepwater Horizon reached a depth of 1, meters.
Now, studies show that more than half of the oil produced in the Gulf is coming from wells even deeper than that. All of this despite a study , which found that for every feet or Such accidents have been on an upswing under the Trump administration. There were also nearly 50 fatalities over that time. Lingering oil slick in the Mississippi Delta off the coast of Louisiana on May 24, Leaks are a constant state of affairs. One oil well off the southeastern coast of Louisiana, owned by Taylor Energy, has been leaking since , spilling between and barrels per day.
That a new spill will one day meet gulf shores has become and article of faith. Unfortunately, efforts to control a new slick will likely look much as they did after the Deepwater Horizon, with armadas of local fishermen once again mustered onto the front lines and toiling in a haze of chemicals.
As the oil eventually receded, many who fought to clean it up became seriously ill. Many of them have died of respiratory complications, including cancer. In the days following the blowout, some 47, people, mostly newly jobless fisherman, were contracted by BP to pilot their boats into the slick pulling skimmers.
Others worked in Mississippi, Alabama and Florida to siphon oil off the beaches. Almost immediately, thousands of them broke out in rashes. They began to cough up blood and developed wheezes. Some were plagued with migraines. Many complained of burning eyes and memory loss. Still others were struggled with new heart aliments, kidney problems, liver damage, and discharge from their ears. Some experienced cognitive decline and anxiety attacks.
What all of them had in common is their exposure to Corexit, an oil dispersant that contains an array of toxic chemicals, but which BP assured the workers was as safe to use as dishwashing liquid. From the first days of the spill through the eventual capping of the well that following July, BP oversaw the dumping of 7 million liters of the dispersant from airplanes flown over the Gulf.
Ten years later, controversy still rages about the wisdom of carpet-bombing the Gulf with these chemicals, and documents released since reveal that government scientists expressed concern at the time about the health consequences of mixing such large quantities of dispersants with the millions of barrels of sweet crude.
Oil and dispersants are a toxic stew. When the two are combined, they unleash heavy metals and hydrocarbons like benzene, hexane, and toluene, which are known carcinogens.
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