Ian MacDonald, professor oceanography at Florida State University, testified yesterday in Washington that more than 50 percent of the oil that spilled from the Deepwater Horizon incident is still in the Gulf, with much of it buried in marine and coastal sediments. As the NY Times reports:
He said the remaining oil was likely to have long-lasting effects on plant and animal species in an area that was already badly damaged by the stresses of overfishing and coastal runoff of pollutants.
“We should use the BP fine (as much as $19 billion) to establish an endowment to restore, understand and sustain the coastal and marine environment in perpetuity,” Dr. MacDonald said in his prepared testimony.
At that same D.C. hearing, other federal scientists disagreed with the FSU professor, saying that as much as three-fourths of the oil was dispersed, eaten by microbes or collected at the surface.
This article appears in Sep 23-29, 2010.