Oil spewing from the blown BP well is entering the food chain. Marine biologists have discovered oiled crab larvae in uncontaminated marshes. Oil from the Gulf is being taken into otherwise uncontaminated areas by contaminated crabs.
Offshore, in deep water, methane levels as high as 10,000 above normal have been confirmed by new data.
On June 26, a lake of oil built offshore of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and the Florida panhandle, before winds and waves from hurricane Alex swept across the Gulf.
Contamination of the food chain
Blue crab larvae contaminated with oil have been found from the Rockefeller wildlife refuge in Louisiana to Pensacola, Florida.
Crab larvae, like this one, were found contaminated with oil.
Contaminated crab larvae, that apparently contacted BP spill oil in the deep ocean have been found in the marshes. Thus the food chain is being contaminated in marsh areas otherwise unaffected by the spill.
Harriet Perry, director of the Center for Fisheries Research and Development at the Gulf Coast Research Laboratory (GCRL), has found droplets of hydrocarbons or oil, in blue crab and fiddler crab larvae. Perry said the oil appears to be trapped between the hard, outer shell of the crab and its inner skin.
"I've been sampling in Mississippi coastal waters for 42 years, and I have never seen this," said Perry. "My guess is that the crab picked up this oil offshore while in the megalopal (postlarval) stage and brought the oil with it when it came back to the marsh."
These oiled larvae threaten the health of the birds, fish and marine mammals that feed on them.
Blue crabs are more than just a favorite food for humans; they are also a favorite food of a host of fish species that live in the marsh. Speckled trout and red fish feed heavily on the crustaceans. The food chain is now affected because whatever eats the crab will be affected, and so on.
Besides finding oil in the body of the crab, Perry’s group has begun seeing small fish with oil clinging to their bodies. "Oil on the fins decreases mobility and makes these fish easy prey for other species. This is yet another example of oil being incorporated into the food chain," she added.
This is the beginning of a chain of events that will decimate the Gulf coast sea food industry.
"I think we will see this enter the food chain in a lot of ways — for plankton feeders, like menhaden, they are going to just actively take it in," said Harriet Perry, director of the Center for Fisheries Research and Development at the Gulf Coast Research Laboratory. "Fish are going to feed on (crab larvae). We have also just started seeing it on the fins of small, larval fish — their fins were encased in oil. That limits their mobility, so that makes them easy prey for other species. The oil's going to get into the food chain in a lot of ways."
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Richard Gollott is Mississippi's Department of Marine Resources commissioner for the commercial seafood industry and a seafood processing-plant owner from a family that's been in the business for generations. He said closure of Gulf fisheries "appears to have been the right thing to do."
"We are taking a beating with this," Gollott said. "But we would rather have our industry have a season closed down for a year or even two years rather than get a bad name. We have to take the long-term view. The worst thing in the world would be to take a short-term look at this and not be worried about the public, the consumers."
Dead zones in deep water
In the deep water of the Gulf, large methane plumes and growing dead zones have been confirmed by new data.
Scientists are confronting growing evidence that BP's ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico is creating oxygen-depleted "dead zones" where fish and other marine life cannot survive. In two separate research voyages, independent scientists have detected what were described as "astonishingly high" levels of methane, or natural gas, bubbling from the well site, setting off a chain of reactions that suck the oxygen out of the water. In some cases, methane concentrations are 100,000 times normal levels.
Dispersants injected at level of the Deepwater horizon's well cap are contaminating the deep water with oil that would have otherwise contaminated the surface. The combination of oil, dispersants and methane is feeding bacteria which are using up the oxygen in the water to consume the contaminants.
In a conference call with reporters, Samantha Joye, a scientist at the University of Georgia who has been studying the effects of the spill at depth, said the ruptured well was producing up to 50% as much methane and other gases as oil.
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Joye said her preliminary findings suggested the high volume of methane coming out of the well could upset the ocean food chain. Such high concentrations, it is feared, would trigger the growth of microbes, which break up the methane, but also gobble up oxygen needed by marine life to survive, driving out other living things.
Joye said the methane was settling in a 200-metre layer of the water column, between depths of 1,000 to 1,300 metres in concentrations that were already threatening oxygen levels.
Deep water dead zones will recover slowly because the rate of mixing of oxygenated water into dead deep water is very slow. Dispersion of plumes is slow in deep water unaffected by surface storms, waves and currents.
Forecasts
Hurricane Alex generated winds, waves and currents that has pushed oil ashore over booms and barriers. University of South Florida models have produced divergent forecasts of where the oil might go next. One model increases westerly currents, taking some of the oil towards Texas. Another model moves no oil towards Texas, instead taking a plume of oil south towards the loop current.
Analysis by Roffs shows some oil trapped in the new loop eddy in the loop current.When the storm clouds clear we will have a better idea where the oil is going next.