The clean-up can "cause far more damage than the oil itself"
"This oil evaporates and forms a sort of mousse on the surface," - Simon Rickaby
07/01/2010
29th of June 2010
UK scientists at odds with US over effects of oil spill
"One of the tensions between the environment and politics is that politicians can't be seen to be doing nothing, even though nothing is often the best option. There is a risk of making things worse by acting with a rather gung-ho attitude to the clean-up, by which you could end up doing more damage than if you left it alone."
"The long-term effects of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico are likely to be small, a group of leading scientists said yesterday, but some of the clean-up methods may be doing more harm than good.
Their views contradicted those of the White House, which has described the oil spill as the "worst environmental catastrophe" to hit the US, and has ordered BP to make greater efforts to clean up the spill.
The scientists, from prominent British universities, said much of the outcry about the oil spill was informed by politics, rather than science. However, they acknowledged that the spill was having severe short-term effects on the livelihoods of people in the Gulf.
And, in a warning that will chill proponents of opening up new oilfields in the Arctic, the scientists added that similar spills in icy areas would be far more problematic.
Simon Boxall of the UK's National Oceanography Centre at Southampton University said that the experience of previous oil spills - including the Exxon Valdez and Torrey Canyon disasters - showed that in some cases "the clean-up caused far more damage than the oil itself". Burning off the oil, for instance, as BP has been doing, caused other forms of pollution and was ineffective, he said."
Then watch this disturbing report from CNN - average life expectancy for workers on the cleanup effort for the Exxon Mobil disaster is only 51 (not independently verified).
