Slashdot Mirror
Oil Means More Arsenic In Seawater
oxi writes "Besides the oil already spilling into the Gulf of Mexico at the rate of up to 60,000 barrels daily, a group of British scientists says one can expect to see elevated levels of arsenic as well. The research, published in the journal Water Research, showed that oil prevents naturally-occurring arsenic from being filtered out of the water by the sediment on the ocean floor."
This is probably some parts-per-billion phenomenon.
Arsenic is naturally found in some fish, and the concentrations approach regulatory limits. It's not clear in what compounds the arsenic appears; if it's locked into a compound that doesn't metabolize, it's probably not a problem.
Everything that is possibly sensational about this story (as if the spill wasn't sensational enough) will be reported.
This spill is a reporters wet dream and they will milk it for everything they can.
Did you see the "will it rain oil" stories they were running now that we started hurricane season?
It is 1:30 AM CST and I am willling to bet good money that if I go into the break room at my job, Anderson Cooper is on with more oil spill coverage. I don't think the guy reports on anything else and he seems to be all that is on for CNN at night
I am of the opinion that the best way to clean up the Gulf of Mexico is to Send the Enterprise (no, not that Enterprise, silly rabbits!). The complete proposal is given at the link.
Tell everyone you know.
(kuro5hin.org has two options for voting for a story: "Front Page" and "Section Page". 93% of the people who voted for my story voted FP, so I have reason to believe that my proposal has merit.)
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
With respect, that article shows the author really has not the remotest clue about the navy, oil experts, oil eating bacteria, oxygen in water, weather (stopping a hurricane - OMFG), and let me just add reality in general to the list.
Massive fuckups that can not be solved quickly with all the experts on earth happen - and this is one of them. We're just going to have to cope with it being fixed slowly.
It makes a good story to send a "ship of heroes" but unfortunately magic does not exist in this world so they won't be able to fix it any more quickly.
Maybe you should care how nature took care of other ocean contaminations on the past,
Fish don't vote.
Drill, baby! Drill!
Palin / Haliburton 2012!!
Khyber is troll... See his other posts...
1) His father designed the Harpoon radar guidance system
2) He worked at HP repair line right next to Dell help line
3) He has immense knowledge about pH and chemistry
4) and what do we have here... He has worked on oil platforms and his solution is
i) relief wells... mmm why didnt BP think of this... not wait... they started working on two relief wells long long ago and they have been trying (or pretending to do something in the meanwhile) to temporary stop the flow till the relief wells are operational.
ii) C-4s, ahh how innovative. When the GP talked about nuking it, did you somehow think it is the radiation from the nuke that would stop the leak? The GP effectively meant blow it up (he said with nukes, and you say with C-4s). And I would leave it as excersie to the reader, whether nuking it easier or C-4s are easier at this depth. PS: before someone flames me, I am neither in favor nor in opposition to blowing it up
Don't blame the masses for what the masses will always do. You have to place the blame where it starts. Yes, people bought the SUVs. They were told they needed to buy them because they were the biggest and the best and so they did. The masses are mindless drones as Apple can plainly attest. It's the marketing and fashion people who really drive the masses... for better or for worse. And what drove the marketers? Well, the people who want to sell bigger and more expensive things, of course. There's a lot more profit in the big machines than there is in the little ones so naturally they want to sell the big ones. These same auto makers also managed to convince the people (AKA the government) to stop building railroads and to build freeways instead.
The demand for SUVs didn't happen until the SUVs happened... well that's not entirely true either -- I can remember when the Suburban was essentially a worker's vehicle until someone put leather interiors and other features in it, jacked up the price to more than twice what it was and now it's "for rich people." They polished a turd and sold it as a diamond. So when figuring out where the blame belongs, you need to follow the greed, not the masses. The masses don't think for themselves and I pretty much thought everyone knew that already... you knew that already right?
If you knew the masses don't think for themselves, how can you blame them? Maybe it's just easier to "blame the Americans" for being born on their particular plot of concrete and soil and living the lives that were handed down to them from their parents and know of no other way to live? Going down that road, you are essentially blaming people for being born and inheriting their culture. How much sense does THAT make?! Should I also blame you for where and when you were born?
No. It's better to blame those who actually have the influence to make changes and fail to do so to the benefit of the planet and mankind.
I found these two abstracts that may help. Langmuir adsorption model is used to determine the effects.
I was trying to put some perspective on the BP oil spill for myself and found it's roughly an Exxon Valdez (E.V) disaster every week (based on approx 50,000 bbls per day), so it's 6 E.V's so far. Considering the amount of damage that was done there, local fisheries are now supported by hatcheries so the overall toxicity of the oil spill has pretty much destroyed the ecosystem. Twenty years later not much seems to have improved and Huffington Post reports not only the human health implications but the same-old same-old response we get from these companies as data collection efforts are simply stopped. Ignorance really is bliss and when it's not possible to do any science and politicians in the future can honestly say "The health implications cannot be determined".
That arsenic is a carcinogen that bio-accumulates in the environment means that even if this catastrophe was to stop right now the human health implications are something that will continue to unfold well into the next generation. Airborne pollutants like Hydrogen Sulfide, which took a week to dissipate from E.V just continue.
Bottom line: No-one knows (A metric ass load?). EPA says you can't harvest fish from seawater with a greater concentration of 0.0175 micrograms of Arsenic. Seawater is more capable of containing As than fresh water and there are many other factors (temperature, organic/inorganic As) that determine toxicity. Pressure from the depth of water is also a factor. I think what is being said here is that the Gulf of Mexico's days as a fishery are pretty much over and it's time to drill the shit out of that oil reserve and empty it as soon as possible.
Lets be realistic No-one is going to take the risk of being the "Oh but you made it worse" person that everyone points fingers at so NO-ONE will do ANYTHING. Right now you are seeing the people standing around the dying person bleeding wondering when someone is going to call the ambulance. I blame the greenies, if they'd have protested more none of this would have ever happened and we could have lived our apathetic little lives without an oil spill of this magnitude. As it so happens now we have to live our apathetic little live without the luxury of ignorance going, tsk tsk that oil spill - so bad tsk tsk.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.