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International Society for Infectious Diseases
[1] Date: 3 Aug 2010
Source: The Times, London, pp.6-7 News [edited]
Some statistics from chart shown at URL above:
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105 days since disaster
632 miles of coastline currently affected
57 539 square miles closed to fishing
3257 dead birds
1823 dead turtles (including 700 Kemp's Ridley turtle, endangered
species, rarest and smallest sea turtle -- see photo link at end)
56 dead mammals [dolphins]
5300 response vessels
30 200 personnel in cleanup
Bob Thomas, biologist and director, Center for Environmental
Communication at Loyola University: "[I]t's more important what's
happening at the bottom of the food chain among the plankton, [fish]
larvae and eggs, because that's the future."
Steve Murawski, chief scientist for fisheries at NOAA (National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration): "Testing after Hurricane
Katrina which caused millions of gallons of pollutants to flood
coastal fishing grounds, found that oyster beds had fully recovered
within 7 months." He also said it was possible that the fishing ban
had more than compensated for the fish and mammals killed by the oil.
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[2] Date 2 Aug 2010
Source: "The Ongoing Administration-Wide Response to the Deepwater BP
Oil Spill Restore the Gulf" [edited]
Flow Rate Technical Group reports that the well initially was dumping
62 000 barrels of oil per day after the spill and that it dwindled to
53 000 barrels when it was capped as the well was depleted. This
means that approximately 4 million barrels were released into the
Gulf [net after 0.8 million were captured by BP tankers - Mod.JW].
US Environmental Protection Agency releases a study of 8 dispersants
which concludes that Corexit 9500 "is generally no more or less toxic
than mixtures with the other available alternatives" and that
"dispersant-oil mixtures are generally no more toxic to the aquatic
test species than oil alone."
--
Communicated by:
ProMED-mail
[Article [1] gives a tally of wildlife killed by the oil slick, which
is possibly only the tip of the iceberg since there was no systematic
survey and many corpses probably sank without a trace. But it also
gives some encouraging news about the probable swift recovery of fish
and oysters -- providing consumers do not shun seafood of Gulf Coast
origin through misguided fears that it may not be fit for human consumption.
The BP oil spill ranks as the 2nd-worst in world history, behind the
Kuwaiti oil fires in 1991, which released as much as 336 million
gallons [8 million barrels at 42 US gallons crude per barrel] into
the Persian Gulf. One has to wonder how long it took for the sea life
there to recover -- does anyone have any data?
Photo of Kemp's Ridley Sea Turtle (_Lepidochelys
kempii_):
[see also:
Oil contamination, wildlife - USA: (Gulf Coast, MI) cleanup 20100731.2575]
...................jw/ejp/mpp
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