re: #2 Rightwingconspirator

The light fractions evaporate. The rest stays. I never believed they recovered much of it. Certainly not the most of it. Dispersed and collected most of it sure. But that huge dispersed part may well be deep, as some reports seem to have found. I do not trust BP or our governments numbers.

No, I don’t trust anybody’s numbers.
But neither do I believe there are huge “plumes” waiting to attack.

The oil in the Gulf is substantially different from the oil that was in Alaska (much lighter, what they call “light sweet crude”), PLUS the Gulf conditions this summer were picture perfect for evaporation

I think the actuality is somewhere in the middle. And tho there is (or was) a lot of oil spilled, if dispersed throughout the entire Gulf - well, it would be a very small amount in any one place.

There are several reasons why collection was difficult:
1. The skimmers, booms, fires, etc., need a POOL of collected oil to deal with. This oil dispersed in the form of disjointed fingers or streams, not big blobs.
2. Again, much of it evaporated, perhaps not 75%, but a lot of it evaporated.

What’s left is the “tar”, the thicker, heavier stuff that will fall to the bottom, OR wash up on a beach, ugly as all get out, but it sits on the surface and can be picked up/cleaned up (not sinking into and polluting the ground).

The most difficult part of this was trying to keep the lighter oil from coming into the marshes, where it WOULD have dispersed in such a way that it polluted the ground, and some ground there is, I’m sure, affected. That oil would be impossible to locate/clean up once it got into the marshes. I think they managed to keep a lot of that OUT, which is a good thing.

I suspect in 6 months (or less, AND I COULD BE WRONG), everybody will be oh, so surprised at the miraculous “recovery”, which won’t really be so much miraculous, as it will be naturally occurring.

Once the gushing stopped, the worst was over and done with, IMO.

Those who made their living fishing are back to work, for the remainder of whatever season it is.

The worst part for the La. economy is the moratorium. Other states whose residents have more tourism and fishing will be fine in very short order.