This month more than 88,000 gallons of oil leaked from a Shell Oil pipeline in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana; for an update on the spillās effect on wildlife,Ā WMNF NewsĀ spoke with Scott Eustis, a coastal wetlands specialist with Gulf Restoration Network.
Listen:
We spokeĀ about impacts on wildlife, oil spill response cooperation between Cuba and the U.S., if the spill has reached shore and whether dispersants should be banned in the Gulf.
āA couple weeks ago, Thursday, there was a deep leak from a new type of flow line off the Green Canyon in the Gulf of Mexico. According to Shell and coast guard it released 88,200 gallons. But, apparently that number was just based on a Shell helicopter survey, so the number is very squishy. We havenāt been able to confirm that number with satellite data because of cloud cover.
āAlthough the coast guard says thereās no environmental impact, we know from the BP disaster and all the studies done on the effects of oil in the deep environment and the surface of the Gulf in the springtime, that there are a lot of impacts: the corals in the deep, dolphins, whales, tuna, whale sharks. So, even though the Coast Guards says that, they donāt have biologists, so they shouldnāt be making that kind of statement.
āWe have questions about the precise size of the spill because the coast guard has designated that level of spill as a āminor spill.ā Thatās a pretty considerable size spill compared to most of the spills that have happened in the Gulf of Mexico.
āWe, along with Greenpeace, Vanishing Earth and On Wings of Care and the Ecogig Scientific Consortium have been tracking whatās going on. Vanishing Earth and Greenpeace were the first to fly over the site and saw the response. Three of the seven available skimmer vesselsāvessels that vacuum up the oil off the surfaceāwere deployed, but, they were not really being so effective as they should have been on paper. If you read the response documentation about what the oil industry claims these vessels can do, they should have been pulling a lot more oil off the surface than they had collected. They had only collected aboutāaccording to their reportsā50,000 gallons of oily water and thatās not oil, thatās oily water from the Gulf. They should have been able to pick up most of that oil in the time that was available to them.
āWe had some storms come through and disperse the oil from the surface, so after that there wasnāt any more of that giant slick that you may have seen in the Greenpeace photos, The Vanishing Earth photos or video or the On Wings of Care photos. So, those boats were called back.
āWe would like a Natural Resource Damage Assessment to be done, of course. But, weāre worried that although we have some reports of oiled dolphins, weāre concerned that the governmentāthat NOAAādidnāt have a plane out there to observe that kind of impact and may not call up for a Natural Resources Damage Assessment. We do want a full assessment of the ecological damages, that are highly likely, in this sensitive environment of the Green Canyon.ā
Is there any evidence that CorexitĀ or any other dispersant has been used?
āNone of our flights saw the boats spraying Corexit and we didnāt see any tanks on the response vessels. Although these response vessels are outfitted to do that, we just have photographs of them skimming. We have no reports of whatās going on at the bottomāyou know, where at 32,000 feet belowāwhere the leak began. But, according to NOAA no dispersants were used in the response.ā
Should there be a ban on the use of dispersants in the Gulf?
āWhat weāre calling for are studies to show which dispersants are appropriate for the Gulf. During the BP disaster, the Unified Command relied heavilyāover the objections of EPA-relied heavily on the dispersant Corexit and the Corexit 9527A, which increased the toxicity of the oil to organisms, but, it was also ineffective and we highly questioned the effectiveness of the use of dispersants in the deep. Dispersants are a toolāyou wouldnāt want to frame your house with a screwdriver, you canāt hammer nails with a screwdriverāand you canāt fix oil spills just with dispersants. The problem with dispersants is that, we feel, theyāre used more to obscure the effect of the oil than they are to actually clean anything up. They do have limited application, but, how theyāre designed is not how theyāre applied. So, we want more studies. If thereās going to be a surfactant applied, it needs to be outlined in an operational plan and it needs to be much less toxic than the Corexit dispersant.ā
Has any of the oil reached the shore?
āWe had one report from Vanishing Earth about a sheen around Grand Isle, but, that no one else had laid claim to that happened at the same time. But, I donāt think the currents were such that the sheen was migrating west toward Texas and was probably dispersed before it came next to shore. But, it even though it doesnāt hit the shore thereās still great environmental impacts in the Gulf from the deep, the corals, the dolphins, the whales and the whale sharks.
āAll this is happening while the government is considering new leasing in the Gulf. Although we know from this and many other events that thereās not enough clean-up, thereās not appropriate technologies to take care of the Gulf as a natural resource that belongs to all of us, here, and all of us in the United States. So, weāre calling for no new leasing until the government and industry can show that they can take care of our natural resources.ā
And finally, I want to ask you about something that a member of Floridaās congressional delegation said about possible talks between the US and Cuba about what congress member Ron Desantis says thatĀ there shouldnāt be talks between the US and Cuba to try to figure out an oil spill response, if something happens, maybe in the Florida Straits. Does your group have any opinion about whether the talks with Cuba about possible oil spill response: would it be a good thing or a harmful thing?
āWell, talking is probably is a good thing. We need a lot more response than we have right now, whether itās in Cuba or if itās in the Gulf Coast. Only three of the seven vessels that were available were deployed to this surface spill and even though skimming vessels were operating much lower than their rated capacity, itās obvious the response is a joke. As John Amos from Skytruth.org said that āwhat response looks like right now, is nothing like whatās on paper.ā So, we need a lot more people talking about response and we need a lot more money being put into response and response technologies.ā
Meanwhile, the AP reports that officials at Shell Oil say crews have repaired an underground pipeline after it broke and spilled up to 21,000 gallons of oil in rural Northern California. Shell reported the leak after noticing that its pipeline lost pressure Friday morning. Environmentalists say theyāre assessing whether the spill poses risks to wildlife and underground water reserves.
Information from the AP was used in this repor
