The long term environmental impacts of the BP oil spill
The BP oil spill has been catastrophic for local widlife in the Gulf of Mexico, with enormous losses in bird life and fish species that may not recover to their previous populations for several decades to come. The oil slick, which took place on April 20th, has been so pronounced that it is impossible to determine if the deposited oil will completely vanish. Much of the oil may become buried underneath the sand where there is no oxygen and no opportunities for microbes to decompose it. However a benefit of this is that it the oil would remain ’dormant'in that it would be unable to kill and exisiting plants or widlife, which would be able to begin a recovery from this environmental disaster.
So far the only good news resulting from the oil spill is that fishing has dramatically reduced along the Gulf, which has helped to compensate for the dramatic loss in numbers of fish over the last few months. This ’balancing'mechanism means that large fish populations are still able to survive and continue to reproduce, when a large percentage of these populations would normally have been captured for the fishing industry. Of course, the downside to this means that the local economy, which is heavily reliant on fishing, has suffered substantial losses in profits and is demanding that BP diesel suppliers compensate them for the hardship it as caused them. The fishing industry cannot recover until fish populations which the levels that they were before the crisis began.
BP is currently involved in negotiations with various companies about the possibility of selling off some of his shares in a bid to avoid a government takeover.
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