Three Quarters Of Oil Disaster Unrecovered, Most Still In Gulf

A new government report estimates that three quarters of the two-hundred-million-gallon BP oil disaster remains in the Gulf of Mexico region in some form, with about one hundred million gallons of oil still of concern. The massive effort to burn and skim oil captured only eight percent of the total, confirming fears that the skimming operations would be largely ineffective. Most of the oil — 52 percent — has been dispersed or dissolved, either naturally or by the use of chemical dispersants. TNational Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Department of the Interior scientists believe that uncaptured oil is in the process of evaporating or dissolving, hopefully with little toxic effect. About 50 million gallons of oil — five times the Exxon Valdez spill — has either washed ashore or is in the remaining slicks that surround Louisiana’s marshes. Some government officials and news organizations gave an unusually rosy picture of the report’s findings:

Associated Press: “Report: Only one quarter of oil left in Gulf”

New York Times: “Oil in Gulf Poses Only Slight Risk, New U.S. Report Says”

Carol Browner, presidential energy adviser: “I think it’s also important to note that our scientists have done an initial assessment and more than three quarters of the oil is gone. The vast majority of the oil is gone. It was captured. It was skimmed. It it was burned. It was contained.”

Watch Browner on NBC’s Today Show:

“Let’s look at this another way,” marine conservationist Rick Steiner, a retired University of Alaska scientist, told McClatchy, “that there’s some 50 percent of the oil left. It’s still there in the environment.”

NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco, while claiming that there is “a negligible amount of oil at the surface,” expressed serious concerns about the invisibly dispersed oil. “The oil that is in tiny droplets may be toxic,” she said at a White House press briefing. “We do remain concerned about the oil in the subsurface. Effects of this spill will likely linger for decades.”

The unusually precise figures being reported by the government are built on “educated scientific guesses,” admitted NOAA emergency response senior scientist Bill Lehr. “There’s some science here, but mostly, it’s spin,” oil spill expert Ian McDonald, a scientist with Florida State Univerisity, told NPR. “And it breaks my heart to see them do it.”

Natural degradation of the oil does not come without environmental cost. As bacteria multiply to consume the hydrocarbons, they deplete the ocean of oxygen, exacerbating the huge dead zone along Louisiana waters induced by agricultural pollution and global warming. “The microbial community is going to break this down, but it doesn’t come for free,” Dr. Mandy Joye, a marine scientist at the University of Georgia, told EarthSky. “It comes at the expense of the oxygen budget of the system, and that’s something that’s not easily corrected.”

The New York Times backpedaled a bit today, reporting that its claims the oil was “disappearing” have been met with “skepticism if not outright distrust.” Instead of admitting her paper had misinterpreted the report, however, reporter Campbell Robertson blamed “environmental groups that came to the gulf in droves, lawyers who have been soliciting clients from billboards along roads leading south, a sensation-hungry news media and politicians who have gained broad popularity for thundering in opposition to response officials.”