The Oil on the surface in the Gulf has seemed to disappear. Where did it go? My bet is that it is still there, below the surface and the Marshes are still loaded with it. Let’s see what the “experts” say.

Oil in gulf is degrading, becoming harder to find, NOAA head says

Oil from the BP blowout is degrading rapidly in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico and becoming increasingly difficult to find on the water surface, the head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Tuesday.

“The light crude oil is biodegrading quickly,” NOAA director Jane Lubchenco said during the response team daily briefing. “We know that a significant amount of the oil has dispersed and been biodegraded by naturally occurring bacteria.”

Lubchenco said, however, that both the near- and long-term environmental effects of the release of several million barrels of oil remain serious and to some extent unpredictable.

“The sheer volume of oil that’s out there has to mean there are some pretty significant impacts,” she said. “What we have yet to determine is the full impact the oil will have not just on the shoreline, not just on wildlife, but beneath the surface.”

But much of the oil appears to have been broken down into tiny, microscopic particles that are being consumed by bacteria. Little or none of the oil is on seafloor, she said, but is instead floating in the gulf waters.

Her conclusions come from the work of several NOAA boats now collecting water samples, as well as the analysis of academics brought in to help study the spill effects. The goal, she said, is to get a scientifically sound assessment of the overall environmental effects of the spill.

“To do this, we’re working with the best scientific minds in the government, as well as the independent scientific community, to produce an estimate of just how much oil has been skimmed, burned, contained, evaporated and dispersed,” she said. “We’re getting close to an answer.”

And from the NY Times:

John Amos, president of SkyTruth, an environmental advocacy group that sharply criticized the early, low estimates of the size of the BP leak, noted that no oil had gushed from the well for nearly two weeks.

“Oil has a finite life span at the surface,” Mr. Amos said Tuesday, after examining fresh radar images of the slick. “At this point, that oil slick is really starting to dissipate pretty rapidly.”

The dissolution of the slick should reduce the risk of oil killing more animals or hitting shorelines. But it does not end the many problems and scientific uncertainties associated with the spill, and federal leaders emphasized this week that they had no intention of walking away from those problems any time soon.

The effect on sea life of the large amounts of oil that dissolved below the surface is still a mystery. Two preliminary government reports on that issue have found concentrations of toxic compounds in the deep sea to be low, but the reports left many questions, especially regarding an apparent decline in oxygen levels in the water.

From the Washington Post:

Now, 14 days after the well was closed and 100 days after the blowout, U.S. government scientists are working on calculations that could shed some light on Hayward’s analysis (even if they can’t shed light on why he said it). They are trying to figure out where all the oil went.

Up to 4 million barrels (167 million gallons), the vast majority of the spill, remains unaccounted for in government statistics. Some of it has, most likely, been cleaned up by nature. Other amounts may be gone from the water, but they could have taken on a second life as contaminants in the air, or in landfills around the Gulf Coast.

And some oil is still out there — probably mixed with chemical dispersants. Some scientists have described it floating in underwater clouds, which one compared to a toxic fog.

“That stuff’s somewhere,” said James H. Cowan Jr., a professor at Louisiana State University. His research has shown concentrations of oil still floating miles from the wellhead. “It’s going to be with us for a while. I’m worried about some habitats being exposed chronically to low concentrations of toxins. . . . If the water’s contaminated, the animals are going to be contaminated.”

‘The truth is in the middle’

We’ll be living with the mess for at least this century. And Just because you can’t see it, doesn’t mean it’s not there in some shape or toxic form.