OCEANA’s lead scientist looks at long term effects of oil spill

OCEANA has hired the vessel, Latitude, for a three month period to take scientists along the areas of the gulf coast affected by the Deep Horizon oil spill. So far hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent in clean-up efforts, and reports from British Petroleum say that most of the oil has dissolved.  The lead scientist has said that though there is less visible oil, it doesn’t mean the oil has dissipated. The ongoing research is already proving that because of chemicals used to break up the oil, much of it is now below the surface of affected waters. In a video provided courtesy of OCEANA; Doctor Michael Hirshfield the lead scientist on the expedition, explained the merits of the journey.

Dr. Michael Hirshfield, Scientist in charge of Gulf Expedition

“Most of the oil that has been released is still in the water under the water. Only some of the oil was captured and some of the oil ended up on the beaches. Another thing that we know is that the impact of the oil that has been under water are likely to affect things like plankton, things like deep sea corals and habitat for fishes, filter feeders like whale sharks and other species as well. So for us, now is the time to come to the gulf to see how much oil is still out there and to look for the longer term effects, not just the effects that people see on TV when the oil washes up on the beach or covers a bird.”

 “So what is it that you actually hope to accomplish in this area in this two month expedition?”

Dr. Michael Hirshfield

“We’re hoping to accomplish two things in this expedition. First, we want to document the habitat and the species that are vulnerable to the oil spills in oil disasters because OCEANA believes that this is not the only time we’re going to have an offshore oil disaster; we’re going to have more offshore oil disasters and places like Florida and the rest of the country and the rest of the world need to be aware of the types of habitats that can be affected by oil. Secondly, we’ll be looking for some of that underwater oil to see how much is still out there and in what concentrations it is and third, we’ll be looking directly at areas that probably have been affected by oil to see what we can observe about he impacts on the fish and on the corals and other habitat.”