I recall seeing immediate signs of the Ixtoc spill on the beaches and in the Gulf well into the 1980’s. However, after 31 years there are still some not so obvious signs of that spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and it would be dishonest to say that the 1979 spill has been completely cleaned up.
Moreover, cleaning the oil from a beach in Galveston, Texas is much easier than eradicating the oil from wetlands and estuaries in Buras, Louisiana.
The effects of the BP spill will be with the residents and wildlife of the Gulf of Mexico until long after any of us are still alive.
Sure there are traces out there, short of eroding away the surfaces which came into contact with the oil, there will be. We see ash layers from volcanic eruptions, carbon layers from forest fires, boulder pavement and moraine deposits from glaciers, silt layers from floods, even old river chanels from the ice ages out on the continental shelf--now underwater.
Everything leaves a mark unless the slate is wiped away. Even the dirt in your yard has a story to tell if you can read it.
I guess the point is that most of the Gulf will be back to 'business as usual'--that the planet bounces back.
In the meantime, some things will be messed up, individual organisms will die, but the species will almost always prevail and continue and replenish their numbers.
It has been that way for a long time.
Unfortunately, and prehaps now more than ever, humans have become increasingly impatient. We want it yesterday, and we have (collectively, as humans) no sense of history, short or long term with which we can provide perspective on current events.
If you think about that, it makes us susceptible to all sorts of tomfoolery, and easy prey for charlatans and thieves, especially those who would steal our liberty with edicts passed in apparent haste over an emergency.
Moreover, cleaning the oil from a beach in Galveston, Texas is much easier than eradicating the oil from wetlands and estuaries in Buras, Louisiana.
Absolutely. I agree. Early on in this I said the wetlands should get priority over the beaches. Not only are beaches less intricate, but reworked sand has a much less intricate fauna than wetlands. From a sedimentological standpoint, beaches are almost continually reworked, where wetlands are seldom reworked by wave action. The particle sizes inboth areas are vastly different, and the much finer clays and silt of the wetlands are nearly impossible to clean, where the sand in the beaches can become oil soaked--drawing oil into the pore spaces of dry sand--but can be cleaned as well, with less environmental impact.
From a biological standpoint, the wetlands are the rookeries of the nearshore environment and have an incredibly diverse fauna; about the only things that mate on a beach are humans, horseshoe crabs, and turtles.
While some effect will remain for some time, the majority will pass pretty quickly--remember, I'm a geologist, and reckon time a little different than some--but mostly in 3-5 years. The remainder will take longer, and there will be traces left unless and until the shorelines erode away.