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December 12, 2014December 13, 2014lupa5302Leave a comment

So when the Deepwater Horizon Spill (also known as the BP oil spill) began on April 20th, 2010, in the Gulf of Mexico, there was certain to be extremely negative consequences.

The largest spill in U.S history, there was 4.9 millions barrels discharged into the gulf.

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December 12, 2014December 13, 2014lupa5302Leave a comment

Corral reefs off the coast of Pensacola, Florida.

San Souci Beach, Alabama

Grand Isle, Louisiana

Empty nets in Louisiana three years after the spill

By Matt Smith, CNN

updated 3:43 PM EDT, Mon April 29, 2013

Yscloskey, Louisiana (CNN) — On his dock along the banks of Bayou Yscloskey, Darren Stander makes the pelicans dance.

More than a dozen of the birds have landed or hopped onto the dock, where Stander takes in crabs and oysters from the fishermen who work the bayou and Lake Borgne at its mouth.

“Guys running five or six hundred traps are coming in with two to three boxes, if that,” said Stander, 26.

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Massive Coral Die-Off Found Just 7 Miles from BP Oil Spill Sit

By Andrew Moseman | November 8, 2010 9:44 am

The Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico brought us those gut-wrenching pictures of pelicans covered in oil, but up to now there have been mercifully few reports of the disaster causing specific large-scale damage to the Gulf environment. That may be beginning to change: This week oceanographers report a vast swath of coralabout seven miles southwest of the Deepwater Horizon site that are coated in brownish-black gunk and dying off. The team says the evidence points to the oil spill as the culprit.

Long Term Impacts http://www.nwf.org/What-We-Do/Protect-Habitat/Gulf-Restoration/Oil-Spill/Effects-on-Wildlife.aspx

Sick Dolphins – As part of the official investigation into impacts of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, a team of scientists did comprehensive physicals on dolphins in Barataria Bay in 2011, a heavily-oiled area of the Louisiana coast. Nearly half the dolphins studied were very ill; 17 percent of the dolphins were not expected to survive.
Sea Turtles Stranding at 5x Normal Rates – Data from the Sea Turtle Stranding and Salvage Network indicates that between 1986 and 2009, an average of nearly 100 sea turtles were found stranded annually in the oil spill area. Since the spill, each year roughly 500 sea turtles have been found stranded, most of which were the very endangered Kemp’s ridley sea turtles.
Unbalanced Food Web – The Gulf oil disaster hit at the peak breeding season for many species of fish and wildlife. The oil’s toxicity may have hit egg and larval organisms immediately, diminishing or even wiping out those age classes. Without these generations, population dips and cascading food web effects may become evident in the years ahead.
Decreased Fish and Wildlife Populations – Scientists will be watching fluctuations in wildlife populations for years to come. It wasn’t until four years after the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil disaster that the herring population collapsed. Twenty years later, it is still has not recovered.
Decline in Recreation – The Gulf Coast states rely heavily on commercial fishing and outdoor recreation to sustain their local economies. According to NOAA, commercial fisheries brought in $659 million in shellfish and finfish in 2008, and just over 3 million people took recreational fishing tripsin the Gulf that year. After the spill, recreational fishing from the Atchafalaya Delta to Mobile Bay was shut down from May to August, and state park closures dealt a serious blow to the parks’ summer revenue.

Link to photos of aftermath.

http://www.aquariusnation.com/the-truth-of-the-bp-oil-spill/the-oil-and-the-corexit-is-killing-everything-in-its-path-truth

Despite serious health issues, thousands have flocked to the polluted beaches to do whatever they can.

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December 12, 2014December 13, 2014lupa5302Leave a comment

And remember these guys?

They are probably full of iPad’s, or IBM computer chips, maybe Canon cameras, or Volcom jeans.

Apple to ring in 71.5M iPhone sales in holiday quarter — analyst

Apple’s Sales Figures Prove A Sad Fact: There’s Still No PC As Desirable As A Mac

Mac sales make up just a tenth of Apple’s AAPL -1.59%revenue, but they’ve received a significant amount of attention following the company’s quarterly report yesterday, both from analysts and from the CEO Tim Cook himself.