Gulf of Mexico – Scientists at the University of Southern Mississippi Gulf Coast Research Laboratory have found trace amounts of oil and dispersant under the shells of blue crab larvae. This is the first indication that the massive quantities of dispersants used by BP to clean up the spill have been working well enough that the oil is broken down to a size consumable by marine life.
The contaminated samples have been found along 300 miles of coastline. Although the presence of the disperant is not yet 100% confirmed, scientists used infrared spectrometry to determine the makeup of little orange balls found underneath the crab shells. “It does appear that there is a Corexit sort of fingerprint in the blob samples that we ran, so don’t say that we’re 100 percent sure yet” says Erin Gray a biologist at Tulane University.
With the well capped, possibly for good, residents of the region are breathing a sigh of relief as cleanup efforts seem to be making progress. Some observers are even noticing that the surface oil is quickly disappearing.
Because of the size of the oil droplets that remain under the surface, fish, shrimp and crab larvae are most likely to either die from the contamination or pass the toxins up the food chain. The long term effects of this truth are yet to be seen but will certainly be devastating.
Susan Shaw, Director of the Marine Environmental Research Institute says “Corexit dispersants, in combination with crude oil, pose grave health risks to marine life and human health and threaten to deplete critical niches in the Gulf food web that may never recover.” This suggests the impact of the dispersant use will take years to be realized and studied.
An important note is that dispersant does not make the oil go away, they simply change the form of the oil so that it is more easily transported and consumed by the ecosystem. And that’s exactly what it’s doing by allowing small creatures to absorb the chemicals and pass them on to higher levels of the food chain.
Scientists studying this news are asking for a true estimate of the amount of oil that was released into the Gulf as they cannot accurately study the results without knowing the ratio of oil to dispersant. A barrier to this is BP’s resistance to admit the true amount. BP will be fined by the Government based on how much oil was released, therefore they will most certainly be estimating on the low end of the spectrum.