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New Oil Slick In Gulf Waters Linked To BP Well
An anonymous reader writes "A new oil sheen appeared in the Gulf of Mexico last week, and now scientists have confirmed that the oil bubbling up to the surface matches the type released by BP's Deepwater Horizon oil well last summer. Ed Overton, a chemist at Louisiana State University, examined samples of the oil and said, 'After examining the data, I think it's a dead ringer for the MC252 oil, as good a match as I've seen. My guess is that it is probably coming from the broken riser pipe or sunken platform.'"
He says it's a dead ringer. Then goes on to GUESS a PROBABLE source. The alternative to his guess is that there's a leak from the plugged well.
You a BP apologist, or did you just skim TFS in hopes of FP?
Getting diabetes AND salmonella would be a bad weekend.
That's right. Humans abdicate responsibility and leave it to some of the most primitive organisms on the planet.
Primitive? I guess that depends on your point of view. You see, a human generation is about every 20 years or so. A dog, every 6 months or so. Bacteria reproduce anywhere between every 20 minutes and every 2 hours. So how many generations of bacteria have there been since 2001? Well it's still the same human generation, but it's been close to 260,000 generations of bacteria. Evolution isn't all about growing a third arm or changing the color of your fur. Just looking at the biochemistry that a simple bacterium is capable of will show you that they are far, far more "advanced" than we are, even if they don't vote or sit around watching sit coms.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
If it's not too bad, then the microbiology will take care of it.
You've got to stop listening to the oil companies. They claimed the same BS about the Valdez accident and here it is 20 years later and all you have to do to find oil is dig down a foot. Bacterial action is very slow when it comes to large quantities of oil. They were claiming days after they sealed the well that virtually all the oil was gone. It would have taken a mass of bacteria the size or Rhode Island to eat that much oil that fast. They also need other nutrients which is one of the factors that slows the process. The point is most of the oil will be ingested by fish and other marine life long before bacteria get most of it.
They obviously did a patch job on it and called the emergency over but a year later there's still leakage. Odds are it'll be leaking for the next 100+ years. They'll just claim the remaining seepage isn't hazardous. The real justice would be forcing the oil company executives and their families to eat sea food from the area until it's cleaned up like they expect everyone else to do. Kind of adds a new spin on "blackened fish". I'm sure the problem would be fixed in record time.