BP Oil Spill Hasn't Caused `Dead Zones' in Gulf, Agencies Say
BP Plc’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico hasn’t caused “dead zones,” areas where oxygen levels fall too low to support most marine life, U.S. federal agencies said.
Dissolved oxygen levels have fallen about 20 percent from their average in areas of the Gulf where scientists reported subsurface oil, not enough to create hypoxia, or dead zones, according to a report released today by three federal agencies.
“None of the dissolved oxygen readings have approached the levels associated with a dead zone and as the oil continues to diffuse and degrade, hypoxia becomes less of a threat,” said Steve Murawski, chief scientist for fisheries at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, one of the agencies. The Environmental Protection Agency and the Office of Science and Technology Policy also worked on the report.
The drop in oxygen stems from microbes consuming the more than 4 million barrels of oil dumped into the Gulf after an April 20 blowout at BP’s well, said scientists involved in the study. Dissolved oxygen levels would have to decline a further 70 percent to create dead zones, Murawski said.
The Gulf of Mexico has incidents of hypoxic seawater, or dead zones, from fertilizer and sewage runoff from rivers that feed oxygen-eating algae blooms. The Gulf dead zone this year measured 7,722 square miles (20,077 square kilometers) as of July 31, twice as large as last year, according to a separate NOAA study.
To contact the reporter on this story: Kim Chipman in Washington at kchipman@bloomberg.net
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