Mighty oil-eating microbes help clean up the Gulf

Topspin said:
and yurtsie the fake lawyer can't give Obama credit for anything.

BP does not fund the 20 billion without Obama's pressure, what an idiot you are. Your side was accusing him of strong arming BP, which I agree with.
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I still think that we will find out that that 20 Billion, along with its attendant overhead, will not be enough but it will be all they will give.
 
When property values fall, so will the tax revenues, so state and local governments along the Gulf coast will feel the pinch.

Add this to the criminal negligence of Tony Hayward & Co.
 
Cypress said:
Medical note: if you’re suffering from neck trauma and whiplash from reading these recent Gulf spill threads, you’re not alone. The republican goal-post moving, and darting all over the map is enough to give anyone whiplash.

When this spill started, GOPers played it down, and suggested it was no big deal; and played up the “horrors” of natural seepage(!).

By May, Dixie (and others) infamously said it was a catastrophe of epic proportions, eclipsing Katrina by orders of magnitude. “Obama’s Katrina!”.

Now, we’re back where we started – it’s no big deal…. and its esta’ no problem-o!


As for me, surprisingly I’m going to wait for scientific monitoring and assessment over the long term to establish what environmental consequences there are. I’d be stoked if the collective damages are very limited and short term. No doubt, the Gulf isn’t, and never was going to be destroyed and obliterated. But at this point, I don’t know how much money the fishing industry lost, how many endangered sea turtles were killed, and amazingly I’m not smart enough to make definitive statements about the fate of benzene, toluene, and other oil-related toxins once they enter the food chain, or get embedded in sediments, marshes, and wetlands.


From the article in the OP:
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That's really the concern I have. How many highly toxic aromatics and PAH's have entered into the food chain? What will be the upstream consequences of that? Has enough petroleum been entrained in sediment, marshes, wetlands, etc to cause long term contamination via discharge of these pollutants? Only time and constant monitoring of the situation will tell.

I wonder what species will be monitored as indicator species?
 
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Threedee said:
Its my understanding that the spill will lead to a rapid increase in the population levels of the organisms which feed off of oil seepage. They can potentially harm the ecosystem of the gulf by becoming too numerous.
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They can by depleting oxygen. These are aerobic bacteria and in order to metabolise these large quantities of hydrocarbons they need lots of oxygen which could deplete the waters of oxygen leaving dead zones. That though is not a long term conserquence. Eventually the high numbers of bacteria would dissipate and oxygen levels would return to normal. What's of more concern to me is that these large numbers of bacteria are now contaminated with high levels of very toxic and carcinogenic compounds that will enter the food chain in massive numbers and will accumulate and concentrate higher up in the food chain. This could have profound consequences within this ecosystem and for organizms that depend on this ecosystem for food.....like humans.
 
Topspin said:
and yurtsie the fake lawyer can't give Obama credit for anything.

BP does not fund the 20 billion without Obama's pressure, what an idiot you are. Your side was accusing him of strong arming BP, which I agree with.
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you're funny when you lie....i have quotes on this board saying obama does in fact deserve some credit, just not all that left wing troll lovers spout

i see you're still obsessed with my personal life....does your family know that you obsess over my personal on multiple messageboards?
 
IMO no 20 bill without Obama's armtwisting.
I could care less if you are a lawyer/ambulance chaser, student or janitor.
I just think it's funny as shit when someone try's playing themselves off as one thing get called out then say they never said they were.
 
Topspin said:
IMO no 20 bill without Obama's armtwisting.
I could care less if you are a lawyer/ambulance chaser, student or janitor.
I just think it's funny as shit when someone try's playing themselves off as one thing get called out then say they never said they were.
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i already told you a dozen times....i leave my personal life off that board for the reason i told you in PM....and you obviously can't respect that because you're a total douchebag

now, do you really want to continue obsessing about what i do for a living, or do you want to have grown up discussions....
 
Your next grown up discussion will be your first yurtsie. You get your ass handed to you on the other site more than this one. Kudos to you for not minding being labelled a moron.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
They can by depleting oxygen. These are aerobic bacteria and in order to metabolise these large quantities of hydrocarbons they need lots of oxygen which could deplete the waters of oxygen leaving dead zones. That though is not a long term conserquence. Eventually the high numbers of bacteria would dissipate and oxygen levels would return to normal. What's of more concern to me is that these large numbers of bacteria are now contaminated with high levels of very toxic and carcinogenic compounds that will enter the food chain in massive numbers and will accumulate and concentrate higher up in the food chain. This could have profound consequences within this ecosystem and for organizms that depend on this ecosystem for food.....like humans.
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Check out the brain on Mott! Nicely done, that was kinda what I was getting at, but you totally smoked me in the realm of biological sciences. :hand:
 
Cypress said:
totally! mott has some super-duper biology background or degrees or something, and usually blows my mind on biology stuff.
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I always loved biology and am fascinated by it. My son got his degree in enviramental biology, so this is right up his alley! He also has a chemistry minor.
 
Rana said:
I always loved biology and am fascinated by it. My son got his degree in enviramental biology, so this is right up his alley! He also has a chemistry minor.
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That's cool. Your kid sounds like a brain!


Me too! I wish I had more biology and ecology background. Its way cool, and I'd be totally unstoppable with some ecology expertise. I'm always getting smoked by the ecologists I work with. Its hilarious!
 
Rana said:
I always loved biology and am fascinated by it. My son got his degree in enviramental biology, so this is right up his alley! He also has a chemistry minor.
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That was pretty much my under grad educataion. I majored in human biology and minored in chemistry. I worked for a year on a Doctorate in Chiropractic at the prestigious Palmer College but had to drop out due to money but boy did I get an education in that year......I literally did two years of work in one year (90+ trimester hours). Palmer is one bad ass school. Wish I could have come up with the jack to stay in. I ended up getting a masters in EH&S management at a top notch program but that wasn't even in the same league of difficulty as Palmer. So now here I am.....working with hazardous waste for a living...one of which benefits is I'll never, ever need a night light again. :)
 
Mott the Hoople said:
That's really the concern I have. How many highly toxic aromatics and PAH's have entered into the food chain? What will be the upstream consequences of that? Has enough petroleum been entrained in sediment, marshes, wetlands, etc to cause long term contamination via discharge of these pollutants? Only time and constant monitoring of the situation will tell.

I wonder what species will be monitored as indicator species?
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I don't know man, but this is an awesome article, linked below.

Part of the problem is that when people can no longer see the oil, everyone just stops worrying about it. Out of sight, out of mind. It's pretty much uncharted waters as to what the long term ecological consequences are, I don't think there's been much long term assessment and monitoring of major oil spills; aka, prince william sound. There's not been nearly enough data or long term assessment to know what the f went down. Which leads to people making a lot of assumptions, proclamations, and guesses, about what actually happens to the biosphere.


And as you can see with this article, just like the tobacco companies, and the climate denier corporations, these corporate dudes are going to fund their own groups of hired-gun scientists to try to put their spin on things. It corrupts the scientific process. The tobacco company scientists, and the climate deniers think tank "scientists" have, and are going to end up in the Science Hall of Shame. But posterity doesn't change the fact that corporate hired guns corrupt the scientific process. Presumably, the steps outlined in this article to have publically funded science step up to the plate will preserve the scientific integrity of the process. But, BP has a lot of money to finance some hired-gun scientists. Much like tobacco and oil companies funded the sh*t out of cancer-denying and climate-denier think tanks.


Science War Room Needed for BP Oil Catastrophe

Experienced Science Leadership Needed to Cope with Crisis

The explosion of BP’s Deepwater Horizon exploratory rig on April 20, and the ensuing deep-sea gusher of oil and methane into the Gulf of Mexico is now one of the greatest environmental tragedies in the history of the United States. Much of the devastation is evident, from the 11 men killed in the explosion to the sea turtles caught in oily sludge. Yet the scope of BP’s ecological crimes is still a mystery, requiring an unprecedented scientific effort to study where the oil has reached—from the bayous of Louisiana to the beaches of Florida—and what effect it is having on ecosystems, public health, and the economy. Columns of oil and dispersant are hidden beneath the waves, and columns of smoke have risen into the air from oil slicks burned at the surface.

President Barack Obama appointed former U.S. Navy Secretary and former Mississippi Governor Ray Mabus to “restore the unique beauty and bounty of this region.” Mabus’s task demands the full resources of the scientific community of the gulf region, as well as specialists from around the globe. What’s more, British oil giant BP will be held liable for damages resulting from the spill, but many of these damages will require scientific research in order to understand and quantify. Without coordinated leadership from the government, the ecosystems and communities of the gulf may be suffering damages without reparation for years.

To meet this challenge, the administration must establish a clearinghouse for gulf region science as soon as possible, led by a scientific leader like Dr. John Holdren, the Presidential Science Adviser, Dr. Jane Lubchenco, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Director, or Dr. Subra Suresh, the incoming director of the National Science Foundation. This effort must have a clear sense of urgency, with flexibility for rapid response. In the words of Sustainable Ecosystems Institute director Deborah Brosnan, we need a “science war room” for the Gulf of Mexico, including “ecologists, wildlife biologists, oceanographers, fisheries scientists, toxicologists and ecological economists.”

This gulf research war room should be an interagency effort, including NOAA, the Department of Interior (National Park Service, U.S. Geological Survey, and Fish & Wildlife Service), Environmental Protection Agency, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Energy, NASA, and state agencies. The initial actions of the federal government to comprehend this catastrophe are a good foundation for such a coordinated effort:

Funding research: The National Science Foundation has taken the lead in soliciting academic research on the BP spill, requesting proposals for grants from its Rapid Response Research program on May 27. Since then, NSF has already awarded 44 grants worth nearly $5 million. Funding for this national priority should be multiplied at least a hundredfold and billed to BP. Program leadership should rapidly and transparently establish a strategic mission and a process for utilizing the best science to direct remediation efforts.

Data publication: The government has begun the effort of compiling and publishing the reams of scientific data relevant to the BP disaster online. Data.Gov/restorethegulf links to dozens of datasets and agency websites. GeoPlatform.Gov/gulfresponse includes multiple layers of geospatial data. All the data being collected by the government, BP contractors, and the academic community on this disaster should be brought together as rapidly and transparently as possible.

Scientific symposia: The government has begun convening scientific symposia on the BP spill. On May 27, Environmental Protection Agency, NOAA, and the University of New Hampshire Coastal Response Research Center convened a meeting to “study dispersant use and ecosystem impacts of dispersed oil.” NOAA, NSF, U.S. Geological Survey, and the Consortium for Ocean Leadership (a group of oceanographic institutions) held an emergency Gulf Oil Spill Scientific Symposium on June 2 and 3 at Louisiana State University. Lubchenco outlined the work NOAA is conducting, as did USGS director Marcia McNutt. Clear lines of inquiry should be established for future conferences, and much greater outreach needs to be made to the scientific community.
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One of the most critical roles for the gulf research war room will be the long-term monitoring of health impacts of this toxic event. Center for American Progress health experts Ellen-Marie Whelan and Lesley Russell recommend that the Department of Health and Human Services assistant secretary for health “be designated to launch and oversee the coordinated response plan implemented whenever a situation arises that can threaten public health.” The assistant secretary “would have responsibility for ensuring—in conjunction with other federal, state, and local agencies, academics, and the private sector—that needed services are delivered and information is collected, and that data, information, and resources are transferred to the responsible HHS agency or agencies.”

In the wake of the Exxon-Valdez disaster, criticism was leveled against the oil company and the federal response for ignoring the need to do long-term monitoring of health effects of the toxic spill. The government should learn from these mistakes.

The leader of this public effort must face the challenging but critical task of resolving conflicts with the scientific investigations now enmeshed with the foreign oil giant BP. As established by the 1990 Oil Pollution Act, BP is liable for any damages to public natural resources, and government officials are now working with BP contractors on the natural resource damage assessment process, as required by 15 CFR 990.14(c). But quantifying exactly what those damages are will require unbiased scientific research.
BP is hiring as many scientists as possible to join its private contractor army and influence the research. The U.S. government must move quickly to protect the integrity of this process.

How quickly? Well, BP already is doling out grants from its $500 million Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative, a Tobacco Institute-like program managed by a BP-picked panel to disburse scientific research grants in the coming years. In an environment of declining federal funding for the sciences, many research institutions have become dependent on private sources of financing to fund their research, and many are clamoring to get a piece of BP’s money. Louisiana State University, University of Florida’s Florida Institute of Oceanography, and Mississippi State University’s Northern Gulf Institute have already accepted $10 million each.

Currently, there is no mechanism to ensure that this BP-funded research remains impartial to the interests of the funder. In a foreshadowing of future conflicts, the Obama administration stands accused of “political intervention” for attempting to establish even moderate oversight over BP’s private slush fund. BP’s emerging control of the science behind its own natural resource damage assessment and resulting liability stinks of the same self-regulation that helped cause this disaster in the first place. It is the responsibility of the federal government to act on behalf of the public good and protect the integrity and transparency of the science surrounding the gulf disaster.
The Senate should take note of this pressing need as they debate a new oil regulation package over the coming week.

http://www.scienceprogress.org/2010/08/science-war-room-needed-for-bp-oil-catastrophe/
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