Have you ever tried to remove a liquid from another liquid?
Not so easy.
There's a reason they say oil and water don't mix, but neither does oil
and pretty much anything else.
Oil is a mainstay for modern post-industrial revolution society.
We run our engines, and heat and power our homes with it; and even with all the precautions
and cost involved, sometimes we accidentally spill it everywhere.
Most recently in Refugio State Beach on the central coast of California on May 19th, but
also in Yellowstone National Park, in Montana, in the Black Sea, Israel, Louisiana, Indiana,
Curaçao and North Dakota THRICE; and that's just in the last year and a half!
Cleaning up the spill is HEAVILY studied, but what about later?
What happens 5, 10, 50 years after a spill?
Is everything just hunky-dory?
Not at all.
On March 24, 1989 the Exxon Valdez oil tanker ran aground spilling more than 11 million
gallons of crude oil into waters off the coast of Alaska.
At the time, it was the largest oil spill in US history.
More than 1000 miles of shoreline were covered in the toxic hydrocarbon chemical; and more
than 2000 sea otters, 300 harbor seals, and a quarter million seabirds died following
the spill.
The Exxon Valdez was a huge story when I was a kid, and by volume it was only eclipsed
by the April 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill by BP.
These two spills are affecting flora and fauna in massive numbers -- but now, years later,
what's happening?
Even after cleanup is considered "done," oil is still in the environment; for example,
tarballs wash up onshore months or years later.
Tarballs are crusty weathered balls filled with soft gooey oil -- like a toasted marshmallow
of death.
When I think of an oil spill, I picture water with a thin layer of oil on top spreading
for miles -- that's the first stage.
Eventually, the sun, wind, waves, ocean bacteria and other forces act on the oil creating the
tarball.
The sun helps evaporate the lighter components, leaving behind the heavy chemical compounds;
sand and tiny particles in ocean water collect in the oil, and the sun, waves and wind form
the oil into an emulsion.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says it looks like chocolate pudding -- and
is even stickier than the original spilled oil!
If it comes in contact with the beach, it can crack open causing new tiny oil spills.
Some cleanups are so severe, the top-most layer of sand is completely removed and new,
uncontaminated sand is brought in.
Scientific American wrote in 2003 that bacterial growth is "inhibited," on beaches and in Alaska
"toxicity remained for a decade or more".
Mammals and ducks ate prey contaminated with oil, and mussel beds are STILL recovering
-- estimated time?
30 years.
According to the National Wildlife Foundation, turtles and dolphins are being affected by
oil, with turtles stranding themselves at five times the normal rate, and a new study
in PLOS ONE found adrenal and lung lesions caused by oil in Gulf dolphins' inhaling of
oil fumes when they come up for air!
Under the water, life is hit HARD whenever oil spills; but humans are quick to forget
and move on.
Coral in the gulf were covered in oil, and dead and dying coral was found seven miles
from the BP spill site.
A study published in Science after the Exxon Valdez spill found even a few molecules of
oil out of a billion -- known as parts-per-billion -- was enough to harm some animals; like salmon,
whose mortality rates increased for years after the spill because sensitive fish eggs
were contacted by tiny amounts of toxic crude oil.
Oil is toxic, inhalation or ingestion of, and contact with hydrocarbons is bad, but
the decades of cleanup and response can affect the ecosystem in so many ways.
The propellers of boats alone can disturb and kill wildlife!
Today, 26 years later, oil is STILL found on the beaches of Alaska and though some species
have returned to pre-spill levels some species of fish, whale and bird are not recovering
at all,.
More recently, NOAA created a model of how sea currents likely carried the BP Deepwater
Horizon oil along the Gulf coast and into the Caribbean and Atlantic.
Though years go by and the media move on, spills like these go on to affect waterways
for generations to come