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To play devil's advocate, the dispersant contained the damage to low-impact areas (the deepwater ocean) and away from high-impact areas like beaches and shallow

by giaour 11y ago

To play devil's advocate, the dispersant contained the damage to low-impact areas (the deepwater ocean) and away from high-impact areas like beaches and shallow-water fisheries.

mhurron 11y ago
Can you fix your post? Low impact should be low visibility and high impact should be high visibility.
- jacobush 11y ago
  He was playing DEVIL's advocate
  - mhurron 11y ago
    Still requires you to be accurate.
- midnitewarrior 11y ago
  Out of sight, out of mind.
- giaour 11y ago
  It's more than just visibility: dumping oil all over a shrimp fishery will have an immediate and devastating economic impact.
filoeleven 11y ago
Except it didn't contain the damage, at least according to the documentary The Big Fix. Instead of having a highly visible oil slick, the dispersant (Corexit) spread it out. It also had the effect of making the oil more bioavailable and therefore damaging to wildlife and humans. Lots of gulf coast folks are showing symptoms of being affected by the oil, the Corexit, or both. I'd love to hear people who live in the affected area chime in, as I don't have any corroborating evidence beyond what's offered by the documentary, but it suggests that the use of a dispersant created a much bigger public health problem than it solved.
- Amezarak 11y ago
  I live on the Mississippi coast. It was definitely a big deal when it happened since fishing/seafood is one of the major industries here. I heard lots of reports of folks who were doing the cleanup who were affected by the dispersants. I haven't heard of anyone getting sick from going out on the water or eating coast seafood, and I feel perfectly safe myself eating them. (I certainly don't like the idea of eating oil and dispersants, but I don't weight it as a very high-risk activity.) From time to time you still see oil or tar in the bayous or on the beach, but it's become increasingly uncommon. Fishermen have vociferously complained that it affected seafood harvests. Unfortunately a lot of the "cleanup" money is being wasted on things like gigabit Internet (which I would love, but come on) and damming up the biggest continental US river to create two recreational lakes in the middle of nowhere. (Coincidentally a county supervisor owns a lot of land that will have to be bought up by the county.)
curtis 11y ago
It is entirely possible that both karmajunkie and giaour are right. The dispersant could have: a) obscured the environmental damage and b) contained the damage to low-impact areas Now in this particular case I think the trade-off was completely worth it. That's because the sea-shore is one-dimensional whereas the sea-floor is two-dimensional. An amount of oil that could damage a huge fraction of the Gulf coastline can damage a much smaller fraction of the Gulf sea-floor.
lostlogin 11y ago
It depends how you measure impact. Front page news needs pictures and the bottom of the sea is hard to photograph. That's about the only way the sea floor is low impact.
- jessaustin 11y ago
  And also, nothing that lives or dies down there has any effect on humanity.
  - emodendroket 11y ago
    That is rather unlikely.
  - manicdee 11y ago
    *as far as we know, from what little research we have done, even though every time we go down there we discover something new.
    - jessaustin 11y ago
      If there were some significant energy flow back up the continental slope, someone would have noticed it by now. The only thing I can think of is sperm whales' predation of squid, but even squid are more pelagic than benthic. The pressure at depth keeps gases in solution, so they're probably not going anywhere either. What else could there be?
AndyMcConachie 11y ago
They dispersed the oil into the food chain. How is that not high-impact? Just because it's out of sight doesn't mean it's not affecting us or the environment.

by giaour 11y ago

To play devil's advocate, the dispersant contained the damage to low-impact areas (the deepwater ocean) and away from high-impact areas like beaches and shallow-water fisheries.

mhurron 11y ago

Can you fix your post? Low impact should be low visibility and high impact should be high visibility.

jacobush 11y ago
He was playing DEVIL's advocate
- mhurron 11y ago
  Still requires you to be accurate.
midnitewarrior 11y ago
Out of sight, out of mind.
giaour 11y ago
It's more than just visibility: dumping oil all over a shrimp fishery will have an immediate and devastating economic impact.

filoeleven 11y ago

Except it didn't contain the damage, at least according to the documentary The Big Fix. Instead of having a highly visible oil slick, the dispersant (Corexit) spread it out. It also had the effect of making the oil more bioavailable and therefore damaging to wildlife and humans. Lots of gulf coast folks are showing symptoms of being affected by the oil, the Corexit, or both. I'd love to hear people who live in the affected area chime in, as I don't have any corroborating evidence beyond what's offered by the documentary, but it suggests that the use of a dispersant created a much bigger public health problem than it solved.

Amezarak 11y ago
I live on the Mississippi coast. It was definitely a big deal when it happened since fishing/seafood is one of the major industries here. I heard lots of reports of folks who were doing the cleanup who were affected by the dispersants. I haven't heard of anyone getting sick from going out on the water or eating coast seafood, and I feel perfectly safe myself eating them. (I certainly don't like the idea of eating oil and dispersants, but I don't weight it as a very high-risk activity.) From time to time you still see oil or tar in the bayous or on the beach, but it's become increasingly uncommon. Fishermen have vociferously complained that it affected seafood harvests. Unfortunately a lot of the "cleanup" money is being wasted on things like gigabit Internet (which I would love, but come on) and damming up the biggest continental US river to create two recreational lakes in the middle of nowhere. (Coincidentally a county supervisor owns a lot of land that will have to be bought up by the county.)

curtis 11y ago

It is entirely possible that both karmajunkie and giaour are right. The dispersant could have: a) obscured the environmental damage and b) contained the damage to low-impact areas Now in this particular case I think the trade-off was completely worth it. That's because the sea-shore is one-dimensional whereas the sea-floor is two-dimensional. An amount of oil that could damage a huge fraction of the Gulf coastline can damage a much smaller fraction of the Gulf sea-floor.

lostlogin 11y ago

It depends how you measure impact. Front page news needs pictures and the bottom of the sea is hard to photograph. That's about the only way the sea floor is low impact.

jessaustin 11y ago
And also, nothing that lives or dies down there has any effect on humanity.
- emodendroket 11y ago
  That is rather unlikely.
- manicdee 11y ago
  *as far as we know, from what little research we have done, even though every time we go down there we discover something new.
  - jessaustin 11y ago
    If there were some significant energy flow back up the continental slope, someone would have noticed it by now. The only thing I can think of is sperm whales' predation of squid, but even squid are more pelagic than benthic. The pressure at depth keeps gases in solution, so they're probably not going anywhere either. What else could there be?

AndyMcConachie 11y ago

They dispersed the oil into the food chain. How is that not high-impact? Just because it's out of sight doesn't mean it's not affecting us or the environment.