Gulf Oil Spill and "managed expectations": it is what it is ... by gimleteye

It is what it is. That's a line spoken to the NY Times, as reported this morning on the rosy prospects for the 75th Annual Louisiana Shrimp and Petroleum Festival. “They’re angry, they’re frustrated, they’re feeling helpless, but they still understand that it is part of the culture and the fabric of the economy,” said Representative Charlie Melancon, whose district encompasses all of the areas where oil has come ashore. “It is what it is.”

From my point of view-- having watched the experience of Florida Bay and its radical decline the past twenty years-- what the coastal zones of the Gulf are experiencing means that the productivity of Gulf fisheries will never be the same: not in our lifetimes.

We know that coastal wetlands and shallow water marine ecosystems are extraordinarily fragile. The Gulf of Mexico, through outfalls from the Mississippi River has already inflicted enormous damage, producing a Dead Zone swirling for miles. In Florida Bay, even the slightest alteration of water chemistry creates achingly visible effects on marine resources. Ask the old timers, how things have changed. The Miami Herald's coverage this morning is interesting as it tries to find the bad news/good news balance. The lead story, "Spill has perfect precedence", tell us: wait a minute, we've been here before. It takes up the issue of the 1979 deepwater spill off the coast of Mexico. The Herald can't be blamed for managing expectations in its own way; finding on the one hand "experts" who will go on record of an earlier offshore spill, thirty years ago, where the devastation to local tourism economies apparently lasted only a few years while, on the other hand, hedging its bets against the difficulty of cleansing oil from mangroves and estuaries.

"The lead time did help, however, said Tunnell, 65, who doesn't do as much field work now, as associate director of the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies. While the edges of the region's barrier islands turned black, booms laid across the few entrances to the area's lagoons kept much of the oil out of some of the most fragile ecosystems, he said. That's far different than the intricate, exposed marshes of Louisiana now in peril from Deepwater Horizon oil. Measuring the recovery of the south Texas coast was difficult, he said. A tropical storm hit the oily beaches in September, as Pemex struggled to cap Ixtoc. "The tropical storms helped clean off the Texas beaches,'' he said, and some environmental studies were abandoned as a result. "The good side is, between one and three years later, everything was back to normal. It doesn't take long for these sandy beach habitats to replenish themselves.''

I did a little research on the Harte Research Institute: its advisory board is filled with that "balance" of industry and environmentalists-- some are well known in Florida and claim credit for restoring the Everglades. I suppose that means we're OK in Miami and the southeast coast and we can take all at their word. Except that beaches down here in Florida don't replenish themselves. The US Army Corps of Engineers does. The Corps has not provided South Floridians on the total cost to taxpayers of beach replenishment. It would be an interesting number to know.

"Despite its pro-industry policies, Ms. Orr said, Louisiana has continued to be one of the poorest states in the country, raising serious questions as to whether the downsides are worth it. “Welcoming all this industry has not made us a wealthy state,” she said. And yet, while the state’s recreational and commercial fishing is now severely at risk, even fishing guides, though angry about the spill, have not soured on offshore drilling. The waters around the rigs and platforms provide them with some of the richest fishing grounds, they say, and the high salaries in the oil industry provide the extra disposable income that fuels their business."

“We just want them to clean it up, that’s all,” said Michael Ballay, manager of the Cypress Cove Marina..." Good luck with that, and the fish too. Twenty years after the Exxon Valdez, the fisheries still have not returned.