Gulf of Mexico has long been dumping site — ‘Too far gone to salvage’

By CAMPBELL ROBERTSONPublished: July 29, 2010 HOUMA, La. — Loulan Pitre Sr. was born on the Gulf Coast in 1921, the son of an oysterman. Nearly all his life, he worked on the water, abiding by the widely shared faith that the resources of the Gulf of Mexico were limitless. As a young Marine staff […]

Nigeria records 3,000 oil spills since 2006

Lagos (AFP) July 27, 2010 – Nigeria, the eight largest oil exporter, recorded at least 3,000 oil spills between 2006 and last month, the environment minister said Tuesday. Evoking the figure at a meeting with oil company chiefs, John Odey told them to work with authorities to tackle the problem, the official News Agency of […]

BP / Gulf oil spill — 68,000 square miles of direct impact

Fingers crossed: it looks like the cap on BP’s Macondo well will hold until the relief well intercepts and permanently plugs it, and no more oil from this blowout will enter the Gulf. So here’s a map showing the cumulative oil slick footprint for the BP / Deepwater Horizon oil spill, created by overlaying all […]

Freshwater wetlands ‘at risk from hurricanes’

Freshwater coastal wetlands are more vulnerable to erosion during hurricanes than habitats with higher levels of salinity, a study suggests. US researchers say freshwater marshes have shallower root systems, leaving them at risk from wave erosion during storm surges. They added that the results could have implications for wetland restoration projects in hurricane-prone areas. The […]

Storm blows oiled boom into Louisiana wetlands

By JEFFREY BALL JULY 27, 2010 GRAND ISLE, La.—To keep crude oil out of Louisiana’s sensitive marshes, workers have spread barriers known as boom in unprecedented amounts. Now the marshes face a new threat—from the boom itself. Recent storms have tossed dozens of miles of oil-soaked boom into the marshes, mowing down grass and threatening […]

Graph of the Day: Abundance of Australia Waterbirds, 1983-2004

Ten aerial survey bands (each 30 km in width), every two degrees of latitude, crossing eastern Australia and providing estimates for up to 50 species of waterbirds in October each year (1983-2004). Letters identify seven particular wetlands: Styx River wetlands (A), Lake Hope (B), Paroo River overflow lakes (C), and Macquarie Marshes (D). Australia State […]

Experts fear long oil effect on marine life, food chain

  Washington (AFP) July 18, 2010 – Scientists studying the massive BP oil spill fear a decades-long, “cascading” effect on marine life that could lead to a shift in the overall biological network in the Gulf of Mexico. With some 400 species estimated to be at risk — from the tiniest oil-eating bacteria to shrimp […]

After oil spills, hidden damage can last for years

By JUSTIN GILLIS and LESLIE KAUFMANPublished: July 17, 2010 On the rocky beaches of Alaska, scientists plunged shovels and picks into the ground and dug 6,775 holes, repeatedly striking oil — still pungent and dangerous a dozen years after the Exxon Valdez infamously spilled its cargo. More than an ocean away, on the Breton coast […]

A fifth of the world’s mangroves gone since 1980

By Jeremy Hance, www.mongabay.com July 18, 2010 A new report by the United Nation Environment Program (UNEP) and the Nature Conservancy has found that mangrove forests are being lost at staggering rates worldwide: since 1980 one fifth of the world’s mangroves have been felled. Mangroves, which grow in saline coastal habitats, are disappearing four times […]

‘Barrier island’ sand berms for blocking oil spill damage wash away

By Brad Johnson15 July 2010 As experts warned, Bobby Jindal’s “obvious” response to the BP oil disaster is failing. Since the beginning of May, Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA) has pushed a crash effort to build artificial “barrier islands” from dredged sand to prevent BP’s toxic oil from reaching Louisiana’s fragile coastline. He and other Louisiana […]

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