Have you ever tried to remove a liquid from
another liquid?
Not so easy.
There's a reason they say oil and water don't
mix, but neither does oil 
and pretty much anything else.
Oil is a mainstay for modern post-industrial
revolution society.
We run our engines, and heat and power our
homes with it; and even with all the precautions
and cost involved, sometimes we accidentally
spill it everywhere.
Most recently in Refugio State Beach on the
central coast of California on May 19th, but
also in Yellowstone National Park, in Montana,
in the Black Sea, Israel, Louisiana, Indiana,
Curaçao and North Dakota THRICE; and that's
just in the last year and a half!
Cleaning up the spill is HEAVILY studied,
but what about later?
What happens 5, 10, 50 years after a spill?
Is everything just hunky-dory?
Not at all.
On March 24, 1989 the Exxon Valdez oil tanker
ran aground spilling more than 11 million
gallons of crude oil into waters off the coast
of Alaska.
At the time, it was the largest oil spill
in US history.
More than 1000 miles of shoreline were covered
in the toxic hydrocarbon chemical; and more
than 2000 sea otters, 300 harbor seals, and
a quarter million seabirds died following
the spill.
The Exxon Valdez was a huge story when I was
a kid, and by volume it was only eclipsed
by the April 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill
by BP.
These two spills are affecting flora and fauna
in massive numbers -- but now, years later,
what's happening?
Even after cleanup is considered "done," oil
is still in the environment; for example,
tarballs wash up onshore months or years later.
Tarballs are crusty weathered balls filled
with soft gooey oil -- like a toasted marshmallow
of death.
When I think of an oil spill, I picture water
with a thin layer of oil on top spreading
for miles -- that's the first stage.
Eventually, the sun, wind, waves, ocean bacteria
and other forces act on the oil creating the
tarball.
The sun helps evaporate the lighter components,
leaving behind the heavy chemical compounds;
sand and tiny particles in ocean water collect
in the oil, and the sun, waves and wind form
the oil into an emulsion.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
says it looks like chocolate pudding -- and
is even stickier than the original spilled
oil!
If it comes in contact with the beach, it
can crack open causing new tiny oil spills.
Some cleanups are so severe, the top-most
layer of sand is completely removed and new,
uncontaminated sand is brought in.
Scientific American wrote in 2003 that bacterial
growth is "inhibited," on beaches and in Alaska
"toxicity remained for a decade or more".
Mammals and ducks ate prey contaminated with
oil, and mussel beds are STILL recovering
-- estimated time?
30 years.
According to the National Wildlife Foundation,
turtles and dolphins are being affected by
oil, with turtles stranding themselves at
five times the normal rate, and a new study
in PLOS ONE found adrenal and lung lesions
caused by oil in Gulf dolphins' inhaling of
oil fumes when they come up for air!
Under the water, life is hit HARD whenever
oil spills; but humans are quick to forget
and move on.
Coral in the gulf were covered in oil, and
dead and dying coral was found seven miles
from the BP spill site.
A study published in Science after the Exxon
Valdez spill found even a few molecules of
oil out of a billion -- known as parts-per-billion
-- was enough to harm some animals; like salmon,
whose mortality rates increased for years
after the spill because sensitive fish eggs
were contacted by tiny amounts of toxic crude
oil.
Oil is toxic, inhalation or ingestion of,
and contact with hydrocarbons is bad, but
the decades of cleanup and response can affect
the ecosystem in so many ways.
The propellers of boats alone can disturb
and kill wildlife!
Today, 26 years later, oil is STILL found
on the beaches of Alaska and though some species
have returned to pre-spill levels some species
of fish, whale and bird are not recovering
at all,.
More recently, NOAA created a model of how
sea currents likely carried the BP Deepwater
Horizon oil along the Gulf coast and into
the Caribbean and Atlantic.
Though years go by and the media move on,
spills like these go on to affect waterways
for generations to come
