BP oil spill impact not as bad as originally feared by Zuzana Zelenakova

On April 20, 2010 Deepwater Horizon drilling rig saw an explosion that killed 11 workers and injured 17 more. And oil began to flow from the underwater gusher causing the largest marine oil spill in the history. The oil spill not only caused an extensive damage to the wildlife, but also to the fishing and tourism industry in the Gulf of Mexico. Global oil and gas company BP was declared responsible for the catastrophy by the US government. Later, BP itself admitted its fault. Although the leak was stopped on July 15, 185 gallons (4.9 million barrels) of crude oil were already released into the water. Six months after the explosion, researchers studying the Gulf lowered the! ir rating of ecological health by several points, as compared to the situation before the spill. What is surprising is that the decline was not as dramatic as it was expected. On a scale of 0 to 100, the Gulf was rated 65, before the spill the number was 71. The thing is the waters of the Gulf have been tainted for years by smaller spills, outwash from the Mississipi River and so on. "There's the sense that it's not as bad as we had originally feared; it's not that worst case scenario," said Steve Lohrenz, a biological oceanographer at the University of Southern Mississippi. "There's still a lot of wariness of what that long-term impact is going to be." Georgia researchers from aboard the ship Oceanus suggest there is still a lot of BP´s oil on the sea floor. Out of 78 samples they took only three contained living worms. "The fact that there isn't living fauna is a signal that something happened to these sites and these sediments," said University of Georgia scientist ! Samantha Joye.

related story (sgx18444): http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101019/ap_on_sc/us_gulf_surviva...

by Zuzana Zelenakova for Cantell TV (http://cantell.tv)

Cantell TV is the fastest growing provider of digital broadcasting coupled with telecommunications, allowing people to easily control, view, upload and share digital content through proprietary interface coupled with free phone calls. Cantell TV is committed to delivering infinite choices to your world of entertainment at the tip of your fingers.