Since the moment an explosion rocked the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, the muckrakers at Mother Jones have been on the beat. After months evading local law enforcement, drilling BP-execs for answers, and witnessing a slow tide of oil lap at the shores of Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi, MoJo‘s staff have released an excoriating report on ecological peril in the Gulf region.
Julia Whitty’s examination of the hidden threat to the ocean’s mesopelagic and bathypelagic zones–the stretch of ocean approximately four miles beneath sunlight’s reach and a critical, less-understood area of the ocean’s ecosystem–from chemicals used by BP to alleviate the oil spill will make your stomach drop. By using potentially toxic chemicals that break up globs of oil before they ever reach the surface–technically called “dispersants”–BP has ensured that the full scope of the spill will never be seen.
Although the devastation of the spill still feels immediate and visceral, the implicit message of Mother Jones is that the worst is yet to come. One particularly shocking info-graphic maps the infrastructure of the oil business in the Gulf. Here’s a spoiler: There are thousands of oil platforms, rigs, and wells and miles and miles of oil pipelines that are just waiting to get ripped apart by a hurricane.
Thanks as always, Mother Jones, for fearlessly exposing the truth and depressing us at the same time.
Source: Mother Jones
Image by lagohsep, licensed under Creative Commons.
