Las consecuencias de un desastre ambiental

El derrame de petrleo en el Golfo de Mxico, en 2010, provoc grandes daos al ecosistema coral de las
profundidades martimas.

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Afectacin a la vida silvestre ocasionado por el desastre de la plataforma 'Deepwater Horizon' de la petrolera BP. / Flickr: Lord Mariser

Dos aos atrs, la plataforma 'Deepwater Horizon', en el Golfo de Mxico, explot y derram 4,9 millones de
litros de petrleo durante tres meses. La empresa British Petroleum (BP), que encabezaba las operaciones en
la zona, tuvo que responder judicialmente por los daos: el Gobierno de Estados Unidos la demand y hace
poco el conglomerado anunci que ya haba pagado cerca de US$5.000 millones en indemnizaciones.
se es uno de los lados de la historia. El hundimiento de la plataforma tambin afect la salud del medio
ambiente marino. Este derrame, como cualquier otro de una magnitud similar, produce un alto dao en las
aguas superficiales e interfiere con los ciclos normales de la vida acutica. Un estudio publicado en
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) asegura que el dao fue todava mayor en las
profundidades.
De acuerdo con la investigacin, liderada por Charles Fisher, del departamento de biologa de la Universidad
de Estado de Pennsylvania, los ecosistemas de las profundidades del Golfo de Mxico estn separados de la
actividad humana, en la superficie, por 1.220 metros de agua, por lo que no se espera que los corales de
aguas profundas se vean afectados por un derrame de petrleo tpico. Sin embargo, la magnitud y
profundidad del derrame de la plataforma 'Deepwater Horizon, hacen que este sea un caso muy diferente.
Qu sucedi en concreto en las profundidades del Golfo de Mxico? Con un robot, los cientficos lograron
acceder, en primer lugar, a nueve reas cercanas al pozo Macondo, como se denominaba el lugar de trabajo
de la BP. En ese lugar no encontraron nada extrao. Tiempo despus trasladaron la zona de muestreo 11
kilmetros ms all del pozo. Fue entonces que, gracias a las imgenes capturadas, se dieron cuenta de que
los corales y las estrellas no tenan tanto color. Estaban manchados de petrleo.
El dao fue provocado por una zona tapada, llamada surgencia submarina, en la que haban enterrado una
determinada cantidad del crudo que se verti en el mar. Las colonias de coral presentan signos de estrs de
forma muy generalizada, incluyendo varios grados de prdida de tejidos explic Fisher en el diario El Mundo
de Espaa, alargamiento de los escleritos (estructuras de carbonato clcico que sirven como sustento del
coral), exceso de produccin mucosa, ofiuros (estrellas de mar) blanquecinos adheridos y una cobertura de un
material marrn floculante.
A travs de las pinzas robticas del Jason II, los cientficos recogieron sedimentos y muestras del crudo, que
luego analizaron con un proceso llamado cromatografa de gases integral de dos dimensiones. Esto les
permite, por un lado, identificar los compuestos del petrleo y, por otro, encontrar su origen: la plataforma
Deepwater Horizon.
Las prdidas del derrame, para la BP, fueron millonarias. Tambin lo sern, ahora, sus consecuencias.

PJ Hahn, Coastal Zone Manager for Plaquemines Parish, examines oil along the shoreline of Bay
Jimmy, which was heavily impacted by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, in Plaquemines Parish, La.,
Friday, Sept. 27, 2013.
CREDIT: AP PHOTO/GERALD HERBERT

In his 34 years living in Louisiana, Ryan Lambert cant remember ever seeing young, dead
dolphins on his trips out in the Gulf. In just the last few months, however, he says hes seen
two.
Lambert, who owns a charter fishing company in Louisiana, told ThinkProgress hes worried
that the dying dolphins hes still seeing point to lingering effects of the Deepwater Horizon
disaster, which four years ago killed 11 people and spewed 210 million gallons of oil into the
Gulf of Mexico.
We still see little telltale signs, he said. Theres crabs with holes in their shells were
seeing that we havent seen before, and Ive never seen baby dolphins die.
One study has linked the spill to dolphin deaths in the Gulf, finding that dolphins diseases in
Louisianas Barataria Bay are rare but consistent with oil exposure. BP, however, has
disputed that ongoing deaths and strandings are a result of the spill.
Still, in the four years since the BP oil spill, its clear some places in the Gulf are still reeling
from the effects of the millions of gallons of oil and chemical dispersants that doused the
water. On Cat Island in Baratria Bay, a habitat that was once thick with mangroves and
hosted hundreds of pairs of nesting nesting pelicans, all thats left now is bones of black
mangrove stumps as the Times-Picayune reports. The island is also quickly eroding, a

process sped up by the oil, which still lingers in the islands marshy soil and has killed off the
trees that help bind the soil together.
Were in a system in Barataria Bay thats already facing severe erosion, but it was clear that
as this oil came ashore, and it stressed or killed plants, it was entirely predictable that we
would see a higher rate of erosion on those shorelines that got oil, David Muth, Director of
the National Wildlife Federations Mississippi River Delta Restoration campaign, told
ThinkProgress. So youre compounding a problem that already existed.
Muths team at NWF has been monitoring Cat Island carefully since the spill. Last year, he
said, the islands mangroves appeared to be dying, but there were still birds nesting on the
island. But this year, there were no birds, and all the mangroves had died.
But Muth said hes most worried about the characteristics of the oil that are among the
hardest to measure. These volatile organic compounds (VOCs) the compounds that form
the sheen on the water during an oil spill and contribute to the spilled oils abrasive smell
wash up on shore and spread through the marine and land ecosystem, accumulating in
plants and animals. The amounts of the VOCs accumulate as you go up the food chain, until
you get to top predators, which may have significant levels of the compounds.
Muth said scientists likely wont know the effects of the compounds for years, but in higher
concentrations, the VOCs can lead to reproductive issues and possibly mortality in wildlife.
The NWF released a report this month that documented how the spill was still affecting Gulf
wildlife, including dolphins, sea turtles, bluefin tuna and sea birds, a report BP disputed. But
NWF scientists made clear that much of the research on the spills effects hasnt yet been
published due to the ongoing trials related to the spill, making accurate documentation of
the spills effects difficult.
We need to find a way to get the system healthy again
Other research is still ongoing. Samantha Joye, a professor at the University of Georgia who
studied the effects the spill had on the seafloor and water column immediately after the spill,
is staying in the Gulf for the month of April to look at whether the seafloor near the blowout
site still show signs of degradation.
No one has visited these sites in a human-occupied submersible since 2010, so we are very
eager to evaluate the health of these locations firsthand, Joye said in a release. Populations
of many organisms living in the water and on the ocean floor were seriously damaged by the
blowout, so we want to know how things have changed since December 2010.
Despite the ongoing impacts of the spill, Lambert is hopeful that the resiliency of the Gulf
ecosystem will allow it to recover from the impacts of the spill. Muth said he thinks some of
the land like Cat Island is likely too degraded to recover, but he wants Louisiana to
rethink the way it manages the lower Mississippi River, so that the river can start building
deltas again. Its something he says the state is coming around to, but the NWF is still trying

to find the funding and political will to implement some marsh restoration projects. Some of
that funding, he said, could come from BPs contribution to the Natural Resource Damage
Assessment.
We cant say whats going to wash away, but we can start building new marsh and start
helping to sustain the existing marsh by putting river water and sediments into it, he said.
Its too late to go in and patch up this piece of shoreline and that piece of shoreline that got
damaged, because its already a declining system. Instead, we need to find a way to get the
system healthy again.