Asia-Pacific

Gulf cleanup could continue beyond 2011

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-06-19 09:49

Offshore, the pelagic ecosystem is in danger, as its host of fish eggs and larvae in their most vulnerable life stages are sensitive to contamination, Steiner said.

The Gulf of Mexico's deepwater coral reef and the "cold seeps"-- where the sea bed emits natural methane and gas-- have spawned many organisms that are also in danger, although some may prove more resilient to the oil because they live on hydrocarbons, Steiner said.

More than two decades after the Exxon spill, two-thirds of the injured population of fish and birds in that area have yet to fully recover, he said.

Some disagree with that assessment, however. Ben Lieberman, a specialist in energy and environmental issues at the Heritage Foundation think tank, said the area impacted by the Valdez spill recovered more quickly than many had forecast and many gloom and doom predictions never came to pass.

Scientists said oil could spread with the arrival of hurricane season, which is just around the corner, and the spilt crude could travel wherever a storm surge takes it-- even to the area around New Orleans, for example.

Despite good intentions, cleanup efforts can sometimes do more harm than good, Zappi said.

"In many cases you have to be careful because the cure can be more harmful than the disease. A lot of heavy traffic and heavy machinery can damage the marsh more than medium to low levels of petroleum," he said.

Steiner said three years after the Valdez spill, authorities determined that the response was causing more harm than good-- there was so much intervention that all the business in the area was preventing species there from recovering.