Voices From The Gulf: Why Is the Administration Minimizing the Disaster?

Marah Hardt is a research scientist, writer, and consultant based in Hawaii. She earned her PhD in coral reef ecology at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and has been writing the Voices from the Gulf series. You can find links to previous installments here.

I got a call today from Will Ward, founding member of the Gulf Fishermen's Association.  Will and I have kept in touch after I interviewed him for our first Voices From the Gulf piece, and he called today to ask me a very compelling question: Why was the Administration minimizing the disaster in the Gulf?

For Will, who is still fighting on the front lines to protect people and ecosystems around the Gulf, the recent spate of "good news" from government officials seems disturbingly optimistic.

"If we look at the Exxon Valdez spill, they are still cleaning up the mess 20 years later.  We could have major problems down the road, with loss of recruitment affecting the industry for years, but we just don't know it yet," he told me.

When the spill was in full burst, both the government and media were quick to highlight all the potential consequences this spill could have on the ecosystem, from the obviously oiled birds to the unseen damage both oil and chemical dispersants might be doing to microscopic larvae—the future seafood buffets of the bayous.  As scientist Ed Overton of Louisiana State University said on June 6,  "It’s the things we don’t see that worry me the most."

That concern has remained in full force among many scientists and fishermen, who raise eyebrows at the administrations latest report, which claims only 26 percent of the oil spilled remains in the Gulf.  Supposedly, the rest of the 200 million gallons has been burned off (5%), skimmed off (3%), sucked up (<1%), or, and this is really telling, "dispersed or evaporated." Here's the problem with these calculations: they are based on some pretty rough estimates, and they completely overlook the long-term damage that may continue to destroy the ecosystem and economy of the Gulf.

First, "dispersed" just means that oil is spread around a bigger area, so it's still there, just in tinier bits. Head of NOAA, Dr. Jane Lubchenco argues that the dispersed oil in the form of smaller droplets is being rapidly degraded by bacteria—but nobody has measured how fast this is actually occurring, nor if all that dispersed oil is clogging up the gills of baby fish, too. Or, for that matter, how all that chemical dispersant is affecting marine life. It just hasn't been looked at.  And, since the dispersant was added to the gushing well a full one-mile below the surface, we know that life near the seafloor was likely (and may still be) affected by subsurface oil and chemical slicks. It's the seafloor community that create the habitat that supports many of the reef fisheries.

Second, the evaporation rates are estimates based on previous oil spills, which occurred at the surface, not 5 miles down. Overall, independent and government scientists are saying its more likely that 50% of the oil is still around, and it's up to Mother Nature to clean up.

Even if the administration is right and  "only" 26% of the oil remains, that is still 1.3 million barrels, 5 times the Exxon Valdez spill.

I talked with Will about why he thought the administration was trying to put such positive spin on what is clearly still a complete disaster.  We agreed some of the reason may be to boost confidence in Gulf seafood, and try to help the industry. Will can appreciate this. But other reasons may not be quite as noble. After all, it is an election year, and it would be nice to tie a pretty bow around this whole mess and call it good.

But as Will points out, we're sitting on a time bomb here. "In five, ten, fifteen years, there could be major effects due to the loss of habitat, or young fish that never made it." If that happens, the industry will suffer.  And Will's afraid that all this "good news" might push the Gulf ecosystem, and the people who depend upon it most, further away: out of site, and out of mind.

Rather than trying to focus on how much we have cleaned up, I think we've got to keep our eyes on what remains to be done. Click on these links to sign change.org petitions to: a) help wildlife b) support the workers dedicated to saving them c) support those whose way of life has been permanently altered by asking President Obama to declare a national disaster and d) keep pushing to make sure this never, ever happens again.

Photo credit: southerntabitha

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