Blog Delilah Kelly: Oil from Deepwater Horizon Disaster Entered Food Chain in the Gulf of Mexico

          Since the debut of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 scientist have been steadily evaluating the effects of this happening. Approximately 53,000 barrels were released into the oceans daily from April 2010 to July 2010. Despite the fact that the oil was capped in July effects from the spill are still seen in today’s ecosystems. Scientists believe this has caused a detrimental effect on the ocean’s food chains from plants to sea animals. Zooplankton is one of the most popular plants used to track the prevalence of oil in the ocean. The oil left behind can be fingerprinted from these very plants. The fingerprints discovered by scientist today show large amount of oil even at very low sea levels. Levels of the oil found in our oceans zooplankton vary greatly from area to area with no consistent pattern. Scientists believe this is having a trickle effect into the different ecosystems that are drastically affecting our food chains today. Studies continue to show gradual increase in the amount of ecosystems that are contaminating our food chains and believe that further contamination will continue to take place.

          Ironically when then oil spill took place many citizens were more concerned about financial stabilityand high gas prices more so than their own wellbeing. Being that the oceans supply us with water into our local city water plants you would imagine, we would first be concerned about our healthy eating habits and our specific intake of sea animals like shrimp, fish, lobsters, crab etc. Although this issue was brought to light through info-mericials on rescuing our damaged sea life, we have lost sight of the fact that sea life are still drastically affected by this spill and we are continuing to take in foods that can be harmful to our well-being.

University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (2012, March 20). Oil from Deepwater Horizon disaster entered food chain in the Gulf of Mexico. ScienceDaily. Retrieved March 25, 2012, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2012/03/120320142100.htm