NYT: Scientists Look to Previous Spills in Predicting Gulf Recovery

While there is reason to believe that the oil spilled from BP’s broken well will disappear from sight in a decade or two, and that animals will repopulate stricken regions, scientists say the subtle effects of the disaster will appear in shoreline marshes for many years to come. Justin Gillis and Leslie Kaufman write about the hidden dangers of both the spill and the efforts to clean it up in The New York Times:
“[T]he human response to a spill can mitigate — or intensify — its long-term effects. Oddly enough, some of the worst damage to occur from spills in recent decades has come from people trying too hard to clean them up.”