APRIL 15, 2015
VANCOUVER, CANADA (NEWS1130)
It has been a week since a freighter spilled fuel into
English Bay, leading to sticky sludge washing up on many local beaches, but
ocean pollution researchers say it could take months or even years to measure
the potential damage to marine life below the surface.
“We’ve certainly seen lingering evidence of oil and spotty
fouling of beaches, along with a handful of waterfowl that have been oiled, but
we don’t have a good sense as to what the impacts might be under the surface of
the ocean, nor do we have a sense of how much oil might have sunk because of
this accident,” says Dr. Peter Ross, director of the Ocean Pollution Research
Program at the Vancouver Aquarium.
He believes it could takes months, possibly years, of
monitoring to get an indication of the long term impacts of the bunker fuel
spill, and we may never know how much has drifted down to the ocean floor.
“The ‘black hole’ for us is how much has sunk beneath the
surface. To get at the answer to that is a little bit challenging because this
oil isn’t dissolving like a coloured dye in a glass of water. What we are going
to see is suspended droplets and tarballs moving around the bottom and it’s
going to be very, very patchy,” explains Ross.
He says a number of species are likely to be at risk for
exposure and uptake, and researchers need to pick a few ‘canaries in the coal
mine’ to monitor how the bunker fuel is taken up over time.
“We are on the lookout for the more visible, more
charismatic creatures [such as seals, sea otters and waterfowl] which we can
take in for rehabilitation and release, but some of the species that are going
to be more adept at giving us good scientific insight into what is going on
would include shellfish that are filtering hundreds of litres of water a day
and are likely to be taking up little particles or droplets of hydrocarbons
over time.”
Scavengers like Dungeness crab and flatfish such as English
sole will also be important species to study, along with sediments on the ocean
floor, which Ross calls “the ultimate sink” for a lot of different pollutants
around the city.
However, that will take cooperation with other agencies and
Ross believes the Aquarium’s expertise has to play an important role in making
sure the long term response to the spill is “defensible, relevant and
meaningful.”
Source: http://www.news1130.com