On May 13, 5:48*am, DaveS wrote:
On May 12, 6:18*pm, wrote:





On Wed, 12 May 2010 14:25:17 -0700 (PDT), DaveS wrote:
Thanx for the enlightenment. *I had no idea that oil spills were
actually good for the environment. Just tell me this: (you must have a
great technique for cleaning oil-soaked birds. It took me a couple of
hours and the bird died,) *How do you do it so "...easily and
successfully..." ?

Dave
Ever thought of hanging out a consulting shingle and going up to
Alaska with your spill expertise? I understand there is lots of oil
left up there that those incompetents could not clean up after the
Exxon Valdez dropped it's load.

Sarcasm noted...maybe you ought, based on your vast, broad 2 hours of
bird-murdering experience, to come on down here and kill some pelicans that
would have survived had you not ****ed with them...even the casual reader ought
to have noticed that I made no claims to any bird-cleaning experience,
successful or otherwise...that said...

Comparing this to the Valdez is useless from a number of standpoints. *The "oil"
in this case is nothing like the heavy crude that spilled essentially on the
surface in Alaska. *It's a mix of light crude and "gas" that has been mixed with
a substantially higher percentage of (warm) water and dispersants before it gets
anywhere near the surface. *Of the birds I've heard about/seen, they have a
slight amount of what looks almost an emulsion of clean "motor oil" and water
with a light dose of detergent on them. *FWIW, from what I'm hearing from
Audubon people, there is more of a danger to the birds from well-meaning but
untrained people trying to catch and clean birds, esp. those that don't require
cleaning, than from the oil. *From what I understand, they are rinsing them with
some form of mild avian-safe "detergent" and water. *There has been so little of
it thus far that there is only a VERY few professionals that have dealt with it,
so no, I don't know the exact procedure of pelican-washing in this case, but
from what I've seen, it's about like washing a baby (human). *Of course, this
all may change if/when there is more oil on the surface, but the cleaning
procedure required in Alaska, from what I understand from _professionals_,
simply won't be applicable here. *

Have a look at these:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/deepwat...596343466/http...

and there are LOTS of other images via the above. *Somewhere in it all is an
image, somewhat surreal, of guys looking at what looks like a couple of _small_
somethings (they are small, probably naturally-occurring tarballs) on Dauphin
Island, while in the background there are about 30 people in Tyveks and
respirators and about 100 people in bathing suits sunning, swimming, boarding,
etc.

And yet again, I'm certainly not claiming that this isn't or won't be serious,
but at this point, there seems to be little actual sustained damage, avian or
otherwise.

HTH,
R

Some interesting pics in the cites, lots more mostly public affairs
and force information purposes. "We shall see" is the real answer to
most all right now. Unless of course the thread is prep for some form
of predictive wagering schema. *On the other thread you haul out the
mace in response to Giles' plankton question. As vociferous as was
your response, you did not say anything that suggested you understood
the crux of his comment. Bottomline is that it would indeed be a
pretty thing if detergents capable of dispersing crude oil, were
harmless to either zooplankton or phytoplankton.

On the face of it, "dispersal" sounds like a good idea, right?
Well.....

Left alone, petroleum (being lighter than water) rises to the surface
where it quite naturally dispereses. Some of the lighter fractions
evaporate, while heavier ones are dispersed to one degree or another
by winds, waves, congealing, biological activities and probably many
other forces that I don't know about. In any case it spreads out
until something, like beaches for example, stops it. The trouble is
that wherever it goes, no matter how widely and thinly it spreads,
it's going to do some damage.

So dispersal via detergents is a better alternative to letting nature
run its course.....right? Well.....

Remember when dilution was the solution to pollution? Detergents, in
simplest terms, act by breaking the bonds that make oils and water
mutually immiscible. In essence, using detergents on petroleum makes
it soluble in water. Now the reaction products go everywhere.

As a highly experienced flask washer I can attest that detergents are
NOT "safe".....no kind, nowhere, no how, no time. Detergents are by
their very nature biologically active.

So of course there is
bound to be bio damage, but its the tradeoff that is necessary to
protect more popular economic and environmental assets.

Maybe. Probably not. However it IS politically expedient.....and
that trumps everything. The trick is to minimize or mitigate the
damage where it would cost the most votes. And that entails careful
analysis and application of all that science can bring to bear on the
fundamental problem of determining where it would cost the most votes.

There is no free lunch. We shall see.

Shades of Barry Commoner.

Commoner's second law of ecology (paraphrased): Everything goes
somewhere. There is no "away."

Dave
Think ity, bity, teeny, tiny creatures. Think way smaller than 22s or
the rumored 28s. Think itzy bitzy. Then think soap and worse.

Interestingly, in a world full of synthetic organic chemicals (over a
million of them last I heard.....in an organic chemistry class back in
the mid 80's), in a world full of horrifically toxic synthetic
pesticides, among the most broadly and persistently effective
insecticides remains......wait for it......soap!

giles