Protecting biodiversity in the Gulf with lessons from the past
May 28, 2010
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In 2001, I was lucky enough to spend my summer living and working in Cordova, Alaska, a small fishing town on Prince William Sound. I worked as an interpretive guide for the US Forest Service, and part of my job was to point out the natural wonders along the Alaska Marine Highway ferry routes between Cordova, Whittier, and Valdez.
Yes, that Valdez. Every time we rounded Bligh Island on our way into Valdez arm, I would point out the site of the Exxon Valdez disaster, and give a little history of the spill and its aftermath. From the M/V Bartlett, the Sound looked wild and pristine, especially to visitors from the lower 48, but the spill had devastating, long-term effects on the region’s ecology, economy, and culture that continue today. Surveys in 2003 found an estimated 21,000 gallons of oil still in the sound, as far as 450 miles from the spill. This oil will take decades, and possibly centuries, to break down entirely. Clams, mussels, and other inhabitants of intertidal communities, as well as charismatic sea otters and orca whales, are still recovering, as are commercial fisheries. Twenty-one years after the spill, the industry has yet to be designated as “recovered,” and won’t be until “commercially important fish species have recovered and opportunities to catch these species are not lost or reduced because of the effects of the oil spill.”
The Exxon Valdez spill pales in comparison to the amount of oil that is pouring into the Gulf of Mexico – the BP spill may be two to four times the 11 million gallons spilled in Alaska. Largely, and rightly so after 37 days, the focus has been on stopping the spill and triage. With the gusher in the Gulf showing the first signs of finally being quelled, now is the time to allow ourselves to feel some relief and some hope. But we have to understand that the recovery process is going to take a long time, and in many ways is just beginning.
Of the many important resources in the Gulf affected by the spill, CBI’s mission and expertise lends itself most directly to protected areas, and the conservation and recovery of biological diversity. Using our recently released PAD-US 1.1 (CBI edition), we’ve identified protected areas along the Gulf coast where oil may make landfall as an initial attempt at understanding the possible impact of the spill. We focus here on protected areas as a proxy for, among other things, functioning natural ecosystems that protect ecological processes and intact species habitat.
We’ve digitized oil spill trajectory projections from Ocean Circulation Group and the Optical Oceanography Laboratory at the College of Marine Science, University of South Florida. By overlaying these projected trajectories on a standardized grid, we can select areas that may contain oil from the spill, or are likely to contain oil in the future. We then identify protected areas in PAD-US (CBI Edition) that are likely to be most directly affected by the spill immediately, and in the near future. Through this we hope to provide a preliminary attempt to identify ecological resources that may be affected by the spill. We will continue to update this freely available data in the future, and look forward to collaborating with others in response to this devastating event.
You can find all of our oil spill work, and any future data, here: http://www.databasin.org/aquatic-center/features/oil-spill
