Economy vs. ecology – Arctic's oil exploration

The ongoing battle between economy and ecology has been a constant sight since the start of the industrial revolution. No matter how much our modern society boosts itself as being "environmentally aware" ecology is always second best when going up against economy. The most recent example of this is oil exploration in Arctic.

Arctic's ice is melting fast, opening door for not only increased ship traffic but also for massive oil exploration. Oil reserves are running out, and many oil companies are driven towards the Arctic area because it is estimated that the area north of the Arctic Circle contains approximately 160 billion barrels of oil, around quarter of the world's undiscovered oil reserves.

Exxon Mobil, for instance, has already poured $3.2 billion into Arctic oil exploration with many other big companies such as Royal Dutch Shell are also more than willing to enter the Arctic's oil rush driven by potential high profits.

What damage will oil exploration and oil drilling do to Arctic's environment? Arctic's unique and sensitive ecosystems have been until now protected by the vast kingdom of ice but the shelter of ice is slowly breaking up allowing oil companies to enter the vast areas of the world's most untouched ecosystems.

Where there is an oil exploration and oil drilling there is also a big chance for oil spills and each oil spill in Arctic area represents huge environmental disaster with much more serious negative effect than anywhere else around the globe.

It is almost impossible to clean oil spill in Arctic's weather conditions so once oil interacts with the surface sea ice it will become absorbed in it. Once absorbed into ice oil can be transported by it for as much as 1,000 miles across the ocean. The oil that will be eventually released in the spring, only God knows where, is very toxic because the encapsulation in the ice preserves the oil from weathering, making it terrible for environment.

What this basically means is that each oil spill in Arctic area represents a major environmental catastrophe because cleaning success is almost impossible in these conditions. The remoteness of the Arctic, darkness, extreme weather, deep water, freezing conditions and floating icebergs are only some of the factors which make dealings with the possible oil spill in Arctic impossible to make.

Economy is yet again looking to be a likely winner but at a very high price. But hey, do you honestly believe politicians care about this when being offered enough money by industry to look the other way?

The underwater contamination in Gulf of Mexico

Oil spill has formed huge ocean dead zones in Gulf of Mexico, and this is likely to cause huge damage to entire ocean food chain. Scientists fear the worst, in fact they believe that almost no marine life will escape the devastating effect of these gigantic dead zones.

The underwater contamination will have deadly impact as clouds of crude oil and chemical dispersants seem to be growing in size. The largest ocean dead zone is around 22 miles long, six miles wide and 3,300 feet deep – a volume that would take up half of Lake Erie.

Scientists estimate that some 8300 different species of plants and animals are at risk, and some species could even go extinct, like this is the case with bluefin tuna. Since the effects of this awful oil spill will last for years it will take long time before the scientists will know the true toll of this disaster.

This oil spill is far more serious than previous spills because with previous oil spills oil rose to the surface and was dealt with there, but the combination of using large amount of dispersants, as well as the weight of this particular crude oil and the pressure created by the depth of the leak has resulted that much of the oil has stayed submerged in clouds of tiny particles.

Current estimates say that 800,000 gallons of dispersants were sprayed in attempt to keep it offshore, but this has made things even worse because these dispersants are toxic to marine life, and once these substances enter the food chain they will do huge damage to many marine organisms.

Many marine scientists have also issued the warnings that this devastating oil spill couldn't come in worse time because this is the time when all the animals are reproducing and hatching, so final damage will likely be much bigger than first expected.

Gulf Coast oil spill to threaten marine wildlife

Gulf Coast oil spill is one of the worst oil spills in the history that will likely have devastating effect on many marine organisms. Particularly vulnerable could be sea turtles, various bird species including brown pelicans, oysters, and several other marine organisms. Brown pelicans only last year came off the endangered species list, and they could be yet again in big trouble because breeding season just started, and with eggs incubating the oil could pose a significant threat.

The damage from oil spill will add to total damage that has been piling in the last two decades as the result of serious water pollution, with much of it runoff from farms, storm sewers and industry.

Many fish and wildlife agencies are doing everything in their power to cordon off the most ecologically sensitive areas with containment booms as they hope this will minimize the total damage. But there's no doubt that large number of marine animals will pay for this human mistake with their lives.

Sea mammals like whales and dolphins could be also put in great jeopardy because they need to go to surface to breathe. This means that oil presents double threat to them as it also releases harmful toxins into the air.

Even ocean's most famous predators sharks could be in jeopardy. Many shark species are already in decline, and Gulf Coast oil spill could cause even more problems to these great hunters of the sea. Conservationists are particularly worried that the grassbeds south of the Chandeleur Islands are very close to the oil spill because these grasses are a known nursing area for a number of shark species, which are now beginning their spawning season in the Gulf.

The worst thing about oil spills is the fact that their harmful effects last for many decades. How many dead animals is that? Thousands, hundreds of thousands?

Oil spills are great threat to animals

Many of you know that oil spills are extremely dangerous for wildlife. The most devastating oil spill still remains Exxon Valdez oil spill with huge number of animals dying because of it. Exxon Valdez oil spill is responsible for deaths of thousands of animals,the best estimates include number of 250,000 to as many as 500,000 seabirds, at least 1,000 sea otters, approximately 12 river otters, 300 harbor seals, 250 bald eagles, and 22 orcas, as well as the destruction of billions of salmon and herring eggs.

The latest oil spill could also cause big problems for animals living in Australian waters. Accident on a rig in the Timor Sea has caused oil spill and oil is flowing from the West Atlas platform to Australian waters for three weeks with up to 400 barrels of oil per day making their way into the Timor Sea to Australia's north. Oils slick is about 170km (100 miles) from the Australian coast posing a great threat as it continues its way towards Australia's north.

Oil is already affecting areas inhabited by dolphins and whales, and some fishermen have reported seeing endangered flatback turtles covered in oil, and many fish have been poisoned. Things are really not far away from real ecological disaster because according to latest reports at least two more weeks are needed to break the spill with chemicals. Of course many of these chemicals are also environmentally unfriendly.

Oil spills - Double threat to fish

When we talk about oil spills we usually think of marine oil spills where oil is released into the ocean or coastal waters. Oil spills take months, sometimes even years to clean up, and have extremely negative environmental impact to different marine ecosystems. Oil spills are usually cleaned by detergents, and while this indeed may really be the best way to treat oil spills in the long term it is still environmentally unacceptable because it increases its toxicity to fish, making it even more harmful.

These were the results of the latest study carried out by a new Queen's University where biology professor Peter Hodson and his associates found out that though detergents are best way to treat oil spills in the long term because the dispersed oil is diluted and degraded it is completely different in the short term where detergents increase the bio-availability and toxicity of the fuel to rainbow trout by 100-fold.

Basically detergents decrease the surface tension between oil and water, allowing floating oil to mix with water as tiny droplets. This dispersion reduces the potential impacts of oil on surface-dwelling animals, and also creates a larger reservoir of oil in the water column. So what this has to do with fish population? Fish population problem in this case is called hydrocarbons. Use of detergents increases the transfer of hydrocarbons from oil to water enabling hydrocarbons to pass easily from water into tissues and these hydrocarbons are deadly to fish in the early stages of life. If oil spills become more frequent this could have serious negative impact on health of fish populations.

What this study really showed is how deadly dispersed oil actually is to fish population, and that cleaning oil spills is in fact double blow to fish population. Of course once oil spill happens it has to be treated but unfortunately cleaning process also has additional negative impact on fish population. The best thing would of course be to prevent oil spills from happening but this is sadly only possible in theory.