Study Finds Widespread Shoreline Loss After Oil Spill
A USGS-NASA study found widespread shoreline loss across areas affected with oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill in 2010. Research Oceanographer Elijah Ramsey says they compared the damage before and after the spill in the Barataria Bay area.
He says in 2009 and 2010 there wasn’t a lot of coastline erosion.
“From 2010-2011 we saw that the change in the distribution of erosion was widespread throughout that impacted oiled shorelines.”
Ramsey says that continued throughout the next year. The study also mentioned that some of the affected wetlands received treatment but it proved not to be helpful.
“The severity, meaning how much oil was on the coast, was related to the length of the shoreline eroding.”
Ramsey says this is an important study and should not just be a onetime thing. He says along with widespread erosion, wetland fragmentation was experienced as well.
“It did lead to fragmentation of the smaller islands in the study area, meaning that you had islands that were actually broken apart.”
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