So I'm mesmerized in horror, watching the hypnotic gush of the live feed. I'm groaning over the ocean life that will die unnoticed in the deep, after ingesting toxic dispersants and more-toxic oil. I'm grieving for the oil-soaked wetlands, and all those to come, suffocated by the black coating of our collective addiction to cheap energy.
And then:
The National Geographic reports on a problem that I'd not considered: a feedback system that I fear will consume the life and livelihoods of the coast.
A vast network of pipes and platforms is woven into these wetlands, and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill could literally expose them to potential ruptures and wreckage, experts say.
If oil kills off marsh plants, wetlands will turn to open water, putting the shallowly buried coastal pipelines at risk of ships strikes, storms, and corrosive salt water. Each rip means more leaking oil, costly repairs and replacements, and in some cases, new wetland-restoration projects....
About 26,420 miles (42,520 kilometers) of onshore oil and natural gas pipelines snake through coastal counties between Mobile Bay (map), Alabama, and Galveston (map), Texas, according to Virginia Burkett, chief scientist for global change research at the U.S. Geological Survey's National Wetlands Research Center in Lafayette, Louisiana....
What's more, the Gulf coastline has been literally sinking as fossil fuels are pumped out of the earth, according to the Gulf research institute. And as the coast sinks, sea level rises--submerging and killing off marshes, according to the USGS....
Add the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and you've got a "perfect storm of wetlands loss," Harte Research Institute director Larry McKinney said in an email.
The wetlands die, root systems decompose, leaving the pipelines unprotected.
... without marshes to act as natural storm shields, waves have more room to gather steam, Stone said.
Such supercharged waves can loosen wetland soil around pipelines—and can whip a pipe around like a garden hose, he said.
So the hurricanes, blowing into a dead wetland, will not only shove BP's oil further inland, but will also ravage pipelines. Fresh new pipeline oil will further add to the oil slurry, killing what wetlands remain, and killing more life even further inland.
The lowest-cost installation of the pipelines -- based on the presumption that wetlands would never change, and that laying pipe was "environmentally neutral" -- will end up being a huge cost to society and to the oil companies.
"The serpent eating its own tail—that's the image I get when you're talking about the oil industry in coastal Louisiana," said Aaron Viles, campaign director for the New Orleans-based nonprofit Gulf Restoration Network.
Extensive development of resources "has been killing the Louisiana coast slowly for the past 40 years. ... Now we're seeing a likelihood [that] we're going to see massive marsh die-offs in a short time line"—die-offs that could in turn cripple the industry's own wetland arteries.
This gusher may be like leprosy, with chunks of the continent's extremities dying and dropping off into the sea. Nature may not be able to heal this in our lifetimes.
May the powers that be help the "Top Kill" work.
Personally, I'm pretty certain it won't, but I also quietly pray it will.
May we learn from this debacle, no matter what.
I expect the "unintended" or "unexpected" consequences will continue to roll on and on:
"Whoops, those migrating birds want to stop at the coast? Sorry -- only death down here."
"The mosquitoes swarms? Well, ever since BP, there's been nothing to eat the larvae. Y'just gotta use lots of DEET."
May the Top Kill work, and then, may we learn to be more humble about our place in the world, and start changing how our society lives within it.