[PAA-Discuss] Smoking Gun: Scientists Find Damage to Coral Near BP Well

Sun Nov 7 12:49:50 EST 2010

Well, dropped it has, Gary as it always does.

Kris

  _____  

From: Gary Yokie [mailto:garyyokie at yahoo.com] 
Sent: Sunday, November 07, 2010 11:45 AM
To: Discuss at paa-tx.org; graham2639 at mindspring.com
Subject: Re: [PAA-Discuss] Smoking Gun: Scientists Find Damage to Coral Near
BP Well

Folks:

Didn't BP, the Feds and others claim the oil and dispersant just "vanished"
or "evaporated?" Didn't the surf just sweep it up like a dust bunny? 

I've been waiting for the ugly, filthy shoe to drop.

--GY

--- On Sun, 11/7/10, Ron and Kris Graham <graham2639 at mindspring.com> wrote:

From: Ron and Kris Graham <graham2639 at mindspring.com>
Subject: [PAA-Discuss] Smoking Gun: Scientists Find Damage to Coral Near BP
Well
To: Discuss at paa-tx.org
Date: Sunday, November 7, 2010, 10:22 AM

The information in this article makes me angry and sad. The article doesn't
even mention the toxic Corexit that was used to "disburse" the oil. All the
Corexit did was cause the oil to sink to the bottom where nobody could see
it. Meanwhile, the damage was being done below the surface of the water. I'm
not sure the Gulf will ever recover from this. BP executives should be
prosecuted to the fullest as should Halliburton and anybody else involved
with the running of this oil drilling platform. This won't happen, though,
because the Obama administration is beholden to these corporations for their
dollars.

Kris

Published on Saturday, November 6, 2010 by the Associated Press

'Smoking Gun': Scientists Find Damage to Coral Near BP Well

by Cain Burdeau

NEW ORLEANS -- For the first time, federal scientists have found damage to
deep sea coral and other marine life on the ocean floor several miles from
the blown-out BP well - a strong indication that damage from the spill could
be significantly greater than officials had previously acknowledged.

[This undated photo provided by the Lophelia II 2010 research group, shows
coral, several miles from the site of the blown-out BP well in the Gulf of
Mexico, apparently covered with brown material. For the first time, federal
scientists say they have found damage to deep sea coral and other marine
life from the the Deepwater Horizon rig, but tests are needed to verify that
the coral died from oil from released in the disaster.]This undated photo
provided by the Lophelia II 2010 research group, shows coral, several miles
from the site of the blown-out BP well in the Gulf of Mexico, apparently
covered with brown material. For the first time, federal scientists say they
have found damage to deep sea coral and other marine life from the the
Deepwater Horizon rig, but tests are needed to verify that the coral died
from oil from released in the disaster.

Tests are needed to verify that the coral died from oil that spewed into the
Gulf of Mexico after the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion, but the chief
scientist who led the government-funded expedition said Friday he was
convinced it was related.

"What we have at this point is the smoking gun," said Charles Fisher, a
biologist with Penn State University who led the expedition aboard the
Ronald Brown, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration research
vessel.

"There is an abundance of circumstantial data that suggests that what
happened is related to the recent oil spill," Fisher said.

For the government, the findings were a departure from earlier statements.
Until now, federal teams have painted relatively rosy pictures about the
spill's effect on the sea and its ecosystem, saying they had not found any
damage on the ocean floor.

In early August, a federal report said that nearly 70 percent of the 170
million gallons of oil that gushed from the well into the sea had dissolved
naturally, or was burned, skimmed, dispersed or captured, with almost
nothing left to see - at least on top of the water. The report was blasted
by scientists.

Most of the Gulf's bottom is muddy, but coral colonies that pop up every
once in a while are vital oases for marine life in the chilly ocean depths.

Coral is essential to the Gulf because it provides a habitat for fish and
other organisms such as snails and crabs, making any large-scale death of
coral a problem for many species. It might need years, or even decades, to
grow back.

"It's cold on the bottom, and things don't grow as quickly," said Paul
Montagna, a marine scientist at the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of
Mexico Studies at Texas A&M University in Corpus Christi . He was not on the
expedition.

Montagna said the affected area is so large, and scientists' ability to
explore it with underwater robots so limited that "we'll never be able to
see everything that happened down there."

Using a robot called Jason II, researchers found the dead coral in an area
measuring up to 130 feet by 50 feet, about 4,600 feet under the surface.

"These kinds of coral are normally beautiful, brightly colored," Fisher
said. "What you saw was a field of brown corals with exposed skeleton -
white, brittle stars tightly wound around the skeleton, not waving their
arms like they usually do."

Fisher described the soft and hard coral they found seven miles southwest of
the well as an underwater graveyard. He said oil probably passed over the
coral and killed it.

The coral has "been dying for months," he said. "What we are looking at is a
combination of dead gooey tissues and sediment. Gunk is a good word for what
it is."

Eric Cordes, a Temple University marine scientist on the expedition, said
his colleagues have identified about 25 other sites in the vicinity of the
well where similar damage may have occurred. An expedition is planned for
next month to explore those sites.

When coral is threatened, its first reaction is to release large amounts of
mucus, "and anything drifting by in the water column would get bound up in
this mucus," Cordes said. "And that is what this (brown) substance would be:
A variety of things bound up in the mucus."

About 90 percent of the large coral was damaged, Fisher said.

The expedition was funded by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The mission was part of a
four-year study of the Gulf's depths, but it was expanded this year to look
at oil spill damage.

In a statement released Thursday night, NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco
said the expedition underscored that the damage to marine life from the oil
spill is "not easily seen." She added that more research was needed to gain
a "comprehensive understanding of impacts to the Gulf."

"Given the toxic nature of oil, and the unprecedented amount of oil spilled,
it would be surprising if we did not find damage," she said.

NOAA did not provide any officials or scientists of its own who went on the
expedition. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said its researcher on the
expedition was unavailable.

Cordes said that the expedition did not find dramatic visual evidence of
coral damage in other sites north of the well. But he said it was premature
to say coral elsewhere in the Gulf was not damaged.

The new findings, though, could mean long-term trouble for the coral
southwest of the well, where computer models and research cruises mapped
much of the deepwater oil.

Referring to one type of coral known as "gorgonians," Cordes said he had
never seen them "come back from having lost so much tissue. It would have to
be re-colonization from scratch."

On The Web:

Photos of the dead coral:
http://www.science.psu.edu/alert/photos/research-photos/biology/fisher-photo
s/ [1] 

More about the NOAA expedition:
http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorations/10lophelia/welcome.html [2] 

C 2010 Associated Press

  _____  

Article printed from www.CommonDreams.org

URL to article: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/11/06-1

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