The Deepwater Horizon disaster is confirmed as the biggest ever accidental release of oil into the oceans. What is seen in the news these days,” three-quarters of the 4.9 million barrels leaked into the Gulf waters has already vanished from the area" and "only a quarter of the oil from the BP well remains and that it is degrading quickly", all seem so manipulated to please the listener.
But that still leaves more than a million barrels at sea. In a context, there are known unknowns and unknown unknowns. Dispersant are being added to break down oil for microbial degradation but the cost is paid in clogged wads of crude that sink to the sea floor.
The impact of the deep water deployment is definitely an unknown unknown, as it has never been used on anything like this scale before. Impacts of the oil spills two decades ago is still being counted and this being the biggest spill ever, even a slight reckoning will have to wait until the first wintering birds have returned, to see how much oil is present to greet them.
With the nature of the oil spill changing, the need to monitor the active, visible spill is shifting towards a need to restore and improve the impacted wildlife habitat.
The Mumbai spill although has stopped nothing can be told of its future impact either.
Time lens can alone tell the future impacts. No matter what is done to ensure clean up, oil will linger in the environment for a long long time...
