Scientists say that the Gulf of Mexico’s overall health is nearly back to normal one year after the spill, but questions still remain about glaring blemishes that continue to restrain their optimism about the nature’s resiliency, all according to an Associated Press survey of researchers.
More than three dozen scientists were surveyed. They graded the Gulf’s big picture using a 1-to-100 scale. Last year, the Gulf scored a 71. This year, the Gulf is up to 68 on average. In a similar survey back in October, the Gulf scored a 65.
At the same time, scientists are worried. They cite significant declines in key health indicators such as the sea floor, dolphins and oysters. In interviews, dozens of Gulf experts emphasized their concerns, pointing to the mysterious deaths of hundreds of young dolphins and turtles, strangely stained crabs and dead patches on the sea floor.
The full effects of the oil spill will not be answered for quite some time, leaving a multitude of, at this time, unanswerable questions.
It appears that the results echo Jane Lubchenco, the head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), gave on the health of the Gulf in an interview with the Associated Press last week.
The Gulf is ''much better than people feared, but the jury is out about what the end result will be,'' she said. ''It's premature to conclude that things are good ... There are surprises coming up — we're finding dead baby dolphins.''
The Gulf continues to be a place of contradictions, much like it was before the April 20 accident when the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded. One hundred seventy-two million gallons of oil were ultimately spewed into the Gulf. The surface looks as if nothing ever happened, while potentially big problems are hidden deep below the surface–in the hard-to-get-to marshes and in the slow-moving food web. Some of those hidden issues may not even be known for years.
‘’When considering the entire Gulf of Mexico, I think the natural restoration of the Gulf is back to close to where it was before the spill,’’ said Wes Tunnell at Texas A&M University, who wrote a scientific advisory report for the federal arbitrator who is awarding money to residents and businesses because of the oil spill. Tunnell’s grades are typical. He says the Gulf’s overall health before the spill was a 70; he gives it a 69 now.
The pre-spill grade may not seem impressive, but it landed at 71 because the Gulf has been an environmental victim for quite some time with oil drilling and natural seepage, over fishing, hurricanes and a huge oxygen-depleted dead zone caused by 40 percent of American’s farm and urban runoff from the Mississippi River.
Louisiana State University professor Ed Overton was among those who gave the Gulf a good grade this year. Overton, a veteran of oil spills, described a recent trip to Gulf Shores, Ala. by stating, “I walked a half-mile down the beach and there wasn't a tar ball in sight. It was as pretty as I've ever seen it.''
The survey did not just look at the overall health; it was broken into categories. For example, categories focusing on the red snapper and king mackerel even average out to higher grades than before the spill, mostly because months of partial fishing bans have helped populations thrive. But categories, such as the sea floor, dolphins, oysters and the overall food web all dropped.
While that sounds good, the average grades for the sea floor plunged from 68 pre-spill to a failing grade of 57 now. Dolphins initially seemed to be OK, but as more carcasses than usual kept washing up — almost 300 since the spill — the grade fell to 66, compared to a pre-spill 75. Oysters, always under siege, dropped 10 points, crabs dropped 6 points. And the overall food web slid from 70 before the spill to 64 now.
Joye said before the oil spill she would have given the sea floor an ''A'' grade of 90. Now she gives it a 30. Overall, Joye, who has been one of the more hands-on researchers exploring Gulf damage, said its health has plunged from an 80 before the spill to a 50 now, but she was the most pessimistic of the researchers.
While very little visible oil remains, some can still be seen. It remains as an ongoing reminder that even after a year (the one year anniversary will be tomorrow), the Gulf is not 100 percent back yet.
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