News From the Gulf
Bruce William Stewart is a lifelong friend. He was probably my closest friend growing up, and we still keep in touch. He left Upper Merion to attend college in New Orleans, and never looked back. He has a keen sense when it comes to current events, a trait that he probably acquired from his father, Don. I find his insights so refreshing that I am compelled to share them. Here are a few of his comments from recent emails. I asked him how things were going down there after being hit by the oil spill, sort of a double-whammy after being hit by Katrina five years ago. That question apparently opened the door for some interesting comments. As I try not to be too political, I do appreciate his candor, and his insight.
August 29, 2010
As usual, the media blew the spill way out of proportion – things are fine, the response was terrific – I’ll send you an article by a scientist from Berkeley (of all places) who states unequivocally that most of the oil has disappeared – natural microbes and the dispersants actually doing a good job; they just can’t much! All, of course, much to the chagrin of the folks who want to fan the flames – anti-big oil etc. – they’re so frustrated they’re making up non-news because they really don’t want to let go this thing – seafood is great, testing by FDA and others finding no trace(s) – some edges of marsh and barrier island sea grass have evidence, but try as they may, they just cannot find the big mess that was predicted.
August 29, 2010
We’re about to OD on Katrina Tributes, Jazz Funerals, CNN hoopla etc. Kind of like being reminded what is was like to live through a train wreck. Obama is here this afternoon pontificating to the press. Feel free to use my comments in UM Today – wish people could experience firsthand how good things really are in this entire region.
August 30, 2010
The attachment pretty much sums up the way most of us feel about Obama’s drilling moratorium. Pretty sad when ideology and pandering to elite leftists throws 20,000 out of work, encourages oil producers to move rigs (which, believe it or not, are quite portable) to foreign waters, drives oil prices up (which is basically what radical environmentalists want) and kills the economy in an entire region. But, after all, the ivy leaguers in the White House know better than us common folks.
Times-Picayune-Monday, August 30, 2010
A moratorium on omelets?
By Glynn Brown
It should be duly noted by president Obama that the current salmonella outbreak certainly merits at least a six-month moratorium in egg
production and numerous committees to hold hearings and further investigate this horrific incident.
Several visits to Iowa by the president to oversee the handling of this poultry disaster; and a new round of photo ops, should not be passed up.
Groups of congressmen and senators should also be paraded through the disaster area to show the people that the government is on top of the situation.
The chicken farmers of Iowa and other egg producing states should look forward to the time off and seek unemployment compensation for the period during which their jobs disappear.
Idled hen houses will be moved to foreign countries, unlikely to return. In time the feds will determine that much of the tainted product has simply evaporated, broken up, been dispersed, skimmed or buried.
August 30, 2010
Here’s one you’ll never hear nor read via CNN, CBS, The New York Times, et al. Despite the fact that this was front page in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, it will still be largely ignored because it takes all the air out of the on-going hype about evil oil destroying the Gulf of Mexico. Plus, the tenor of it is much too positive. And, the best part is that it emanates from BERKELEY!
What the media should (but never will) focus on is the fiasco the Obama Administration has visited upon us by this knee-jerk response and subsequent shutdown of offshore oil production. Twice, a federal judge has rejected the White House’s arguments in favor of maintaining the moratorium, and now they’re going back to court to persist in forcing their will upon the people. Sound familiar? You’re gonna get our brand of health care whether you like it or not!
Boy, I hope the folks up East and out in the Midwest know who to blame when heating oil and gasoline both skyrocket.
They’d have slapped a wholesale ban on all hens-a-laying too, but they’re not part of the hidden agenda.
God save the Egg McMuffin from Ken Salazar & Company!
Times-Picayune -Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Microbes make oil vanish, scientist says
Spill may be entirely consumed
By Rebecca Mowbray
Business writer
A top scientist studying the
ability of bacteria to break down
the oil plume in the Gulf of Mex-
ico says that microbes have been
so successful that the oil may be
gone.
Terry Hazen, a microbial ecol-
ogist at the Lawrence Berkeley
National Laboratory who pub-
lished a ground-breaking study
of microbial activity Tuesday in
the online research journal Sci-
ence Express, has had a team of
researchers out in the Gulf since
May 25 collecting water samples.
They noticed a dramatic drop-off
in the amount of oil in the Gulf
immediately after the well was
idled July 15, and now they can’t
find any oil in the ocean.
Alan Mearns, senioir staff sci-
entist in NOAAs emergency
response division, described the
work as significant. “Research
about the biodegradation rate of
the Deepwater Horizon/BP oil
is critical to the understanding
of the fate of what remains in
the Gulf. This study shows that
microbes are quickly degrading
some components of subsurface
oil found in the deep ocean with-
out creating hazardous dead
zones. NOAA will continue to
monitor and test for subsurface
oil and its impacts on the gulf
ecosystem,” he said in an e-mail.
Rich Camilli, an oceanogra-
pher at the Woods Hole Ocean-
ographic Institution in Mas-
sachusetts and the lead author-
of a study published in Science
Express last week that estimat-
ed the size of the oil plume, also
praised Hazen’s work.
“The work that Terry and
his co-authors have done is
incredibly valuable, because,
it gives us insight into what is
happening in this plume, and
who is doing it,” Camilli said.
Hazen said that conditions
have been “absolutely optimal”
for the degradation of oil.
The type of light crude
coming out of the well has a
large volatile component that
degrades easily, the oil particles
in the plume are small, the con-
centrations of oil in the plume
are low and the water where
the plume was located is cold.
Meanwhile, Hazen’s team of’
researchers believe that the many
natural oil seeps in the area have
helped the bacteria to adapt to oil.
“In the last three weeks we
haven’t been able to detect a
deep plume anywhere,” Hazen
said. “We can’t see it now We
can’t see anything at the sur-
face. We can’t see anything in
the deep subsurface either.”
Hazen’s comments come
as debate has raged about the
amount of oil that remains in
the Gulf of Mexico from the
April 20 Deepwater Horizon rig
explosion.
Although many have cast
doubt upon an Aug. 4 report by
the National Oceanic and Atmo-
spheric Administration and oth-
er governmental agencies that
just 26 percent of the estimated
4.9 million barrels of oil released
from blown-out BP well remains
onshore and at sea, Hazen is
even more optimistic that oil is
disappearing rapidly.
“It’s probably less than
that,” he said, acknowledging
that he’s talking about oil in the
ocean rather than oil that’s on
beaches or in marshes.
Hazen, head of the Ecolo-
gy Department and Center for
Environmental Biotechnology
at the Berkeley Lab’s Earth Sci-
ences Division, conducted his
peer-reviewed research under
an existing grant he has with
the Energy Biosciences Insti-
tute to study the work of bacteria
in oil spills. The Energy Biosci-
ences Institute is a partnership
led by Urdversity of California at
Berkeley that is funded by a $500
million, ten-year grant from BP
in their environment over a long
period of time, so when the BP
blowout came along, they thrived.
Even as the amount of oil in water
increased as the well flowed,
microbe levels remained constant
suggesting that they were able to
keep pace with the oil.
“The bugs in this area have
become adapted to using oil as
a carbon source,” Hazen said.
That the oil-munching bacteria
were able to consume tiny drop-
lets of oil could validate the use of
the Corexit chemical dispersant
for helping to speed the biodeg-
radation of the oil, Hazen said,
although the long-term effects of
Corexit on the ecosystem in the
Gulf remains to be seen.
“It certainly looks like it may
have had some positive effect
by keeping that oil down there
and allowing it to be biodegrad-
ed,” Hazen said, adding that his
team hasn’t been able to find the
presence of any Corexit, either,
because it’s water-soluble.
Hazen’s observations build
upon his peer-reviewed study
published Tuesday on the first-
ever data on microbial activity
in a deepwater oil plume.
Using data collected early in
the disaster from water samples
taken from around the site of
the blown-out well between May
25 and June 2, his team found
higher concentrations of oil-eat-
ing bacteria than expected, and
discovered that an entirely new
petroleum-munching microbe
was leading the charge.
They monitored the rate at
which the bacteria was break-
ing down the oil, and concluded
that the rate of biodegradation
was much faster than what the
oil would be expected to do on
its own, suggesting that the
bacteria were playing a major
role in getting rid of the oil.
“The results indicated that a
variety of hydrocarbon-degrad-
ing populations exist in the deep-
sea plume and that the micro-
bi,al communities appear to be
undergoing rapid dynamic adap-
tation in response to oil contami-
nation,” the report says. “These
results also imply that there
exists a potential for intrinsic
bioremediation of oil contami-
nants in the deep-sea, and that
oil-degrading communities could
play a significant role in control-
ing the ultimate fates of hydro-
carbons in the Gulf.”
Hazen’s study also found
that as the microbes do their
work, they don’t appear to use
much oxygen.
Camilli, the Woods Hole
oceanographer, said that while
his study and Hazen’s were very
different, both examined oxygen
associated with the plume and
corroborate the conclusion that
the microbes are not using oxy-
gen fast enough to contribute to
the dead zone in the Gulf.
“Yes, the microbes are using the
oxygen to biodegrade the hydro-
carbons, but not at a rate that’s
significant enough to degrade the
fisheries,” Caniilh said. “In both
cases, our findings indicate that
although there are hydrocarbons
in the subsurface, the microbes
aren’t compounding the situation
by creating a dead zone.”
Ed Overton, an oil spill
expert at Louisiana State Uni-
versity, said bacteria have great
potential to eat oil, and that the
results of the Berkeley study
sound reasonable.
“This oil is very degradable,”
he said. “That’s good news
because it means it’s going to
go away quicker.”
Rebecca Mowbray can be reached
at rmowbray@timespicayune.com or
504.826.3417
