An Answer to Prayer? BP Spill Vanishing Much Faster Than Expected

Teresa Neumann : Aug 3, 2010
Niall Firth - The Daily Mail

"There's just no data to suggest this is an environmental disaster. I have no interest in making BP look good—I think they lied about the size of the spill—but we're not seeing catastrophic impacts. There's a lot of hype, but no evidence to justify it."

(United Kingdom)—A mere 16 days after the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico was finally stopped, scientists are saying BP boss Tony Hayward, who was fired from overseeing the oil disaster, may have been right in minimizing the extent of the spill's damage.

As reported in The Daily Mail, oil from the well is clearing from the sea surface much faster than scientists expected with the water around the Gulf now "almost entirely clear." Some are even asking if the original threat was "exaggerated."

Notes the report: "Time Magazine, The Washington Post, the New York Times and Vanity Fair have all now raised the prospect that the much-maligned ex-BP boss may have been right after all...So far, officials say they have recovered 34.6 million gallons of oily water using skimmer boats and burned about 11.1 million gallons off the ocean's surface. But the vast majority of the oil still remains unaccounted for."

Marine scientist Ivor van Heerden told Time Magazine: "There's just no data to suggest this is an environmental disaster. I have no interest in making BP look good—I think they lied about the size of the spill—but we're not seeing catastrophic impacts. There's a lot of hype, but no evidence to justify it."

Jane Lubchenco, the head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, was quoted as saying the oil beneath the surface appears to be biodegrading very quickly, and Dr. Simon Boxall, an expert in marine pollution and dispersion at the National Oceanography Centre, University of Southampton, said it is not the size of the leak which matters, but where it occurs and what type of oil is involved.

"When Tony Hayward said it was a drop in the ocean, it might have been the wrong thing to say at the time, but it was the truth," said Boxall. "This spill is the equivalent of less than a drop in an Olympic-sized swimming pool. For all but a tiny bit of the Gulf, it will be back to normal within a year. The beaches will be normal before Christmas, fishing will be back in two months and the shellfish industry in two years. It's not that the oysters and clams are poisonous, it's just that they won't taste very nice."

Boxall was also quoted as saying the steady shipping traffic that fills the Gulf of Mexico means that the waterway had developed microbes that break down the oil.

Follow the link provided to read the report in its entirety.