ON THE WATERFRONTONTHEWATERFRONT
COASTAL OIL SPILLS D-DAY
GUY deBOER TALK SHOW HOST
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A N I N T E R V I E W W I T H Dr. David Vaughn
Guy deBoer/GD:Tis is a radio interview with Dr. David Vaughn, the executive director of the MOTE Marine Laboratory located in Summerland Key, to talk about the Deep Horizon Oil Spill and the effects of this disaster that hap- pened in the Gulf. Historically speaking in April 2010, the BP oil drilling rig suffered a catastrophic accident that included an explo- sion and fire that caused the death of 11 rig workers and the ultimate sinking of the rig in the Gulf of Mexico with an estimated 4-20 million barrels of oil leaked into the Gulf. Today what are the find- ings of the marine research com- munity surrounding the rig. as far as the water quality and marine life on the ocean floor? DV: For most of the public, the day they heard the well was capped, forgot about the spill. Tey thought everything was fine, everything was over, but we won’t know the full extent of this for probably 10 years. And why we won’t know that is that the actual analysis for the Santa Barbara oil spill, which was many decades ago, was just completed this past year.
GD: Is there any difference be- tween the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and the one that happened off the coast of California? DV: Absolutely. For one, in just the scale and scope of the amount. Tis has been the largest oil spill ever recorded. It also was unprece- dented — almost one mile deep. Secondarily, just dispersants were used at the well head, which means that the clumping of the oil with a detergent, so to speak, happened one mile down so the amount of oil that reached the surface was only a small percent of what peo- ple saw. Most of it is underwater and in areas very difficult for us to get to.
GD:When you say dispersants are used, traditionally the oil industry uses them as a way of rating how much oil was being released. Are you saying that they hid the major- ity of that oil? DV:What I’m saying is that this is again an unprecedented volume. In fact, the volume of dispersants put in on purpose was almost more than a lot of oil spills in gallons that we’re used to. And what hap- pened is, mostly dispersants are used at the surface to get the water to stop floating at the top, and to
12 KONK Life
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