Reply #21: Yes. The latest reports show [View All]

[bherrera]

A large portion was eaten by bacteria. This biodegradation effect is uniquely effective in the Gulf of Mexico because the bacteria in the ocean are already well suited to eat oil - there is a lot of oil in the Gulf of Mexico and they have evolved to eat it.

I have signed up to receive the email updates from the US government oil spill response task force, and they are providing a lot of information, which I am sure many of you are not bothering to read. I am an engineer living near a beach in Spain, therefore this is a hobby I am developing to make sure I know how to protect our beaches if this happens here, which I think could happen if an oil tanker has an accident.

According to the reports I saw this morning, there is approximately 18 % of the Gulf of Mexico closed for fishing because the water is too polluted to make sure the fish are fit to consume. There are in excess of 119 km of beaches which are considered fouled with oil. Also there is a report BP has applied for a permit to clean the oil which seeped underneath the sand in many beaches, but they require a special permit because to dig the sand below a certain depth is considered a violation of the archeology norms, and they will require an exception to dig down, and clean the oil fouled sand located underneath, where they already cleaned.

Fortunately for tourism, the beaches considered to have bad fouling are limited to 2 km in florida, which is where a lot of tourists go. This is overall showing the Obama administration is better managed than the Bush administration, and they have done a good job. And I do see a Republican movement to try to put this oil spill around the President Obama's neck, when this is clearly a result of a broken regulatory system which emerged when President Bush was in power.