A major oil-by-rail terminal proposed on the Columbia River in Washington state poses a potential risk of oil spills, train accidents and longer emergency response times due to road traffic, an environmental study has found.
Many of the risks could be decreased with certain mitigation measures, but the study released Tuesday outlined four areas where it said the impacts are significant and cannot be avoided.
The study said that while "the likelihood of occurrence of the potential for oil spills may be low, the consequences of the events could be severe."
[...] The study identified the four risks that could not be avoided as train accidents, the emergency response delays, negative impacts of the project on low-income communities and the possibility that an earthquake would damage the facility's dock and cause an oil spill.
Washington state panel outlines risk of oil-by-rail terminal
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 25 2017, @07:59PM (2 children)
> Ten years. If this is your definition of "lasting damage", it is plain laughable.
Hooray, it's semantics time! What's your definition? How about 30 years? I mentioned a 30-year period in the next paragraph, which you ignored. fritsd linked to an infographic showing effects ~34 years later.
> Did those researchers care to reconcile their findings with the facts such as these? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_seep [wikipedia.org]
I don't know. Your Wikipedia article says:
In places where oil naturally seeps into the ocean, species that are adapted to the oil form an ecosystem. If humans add more oil into that ecosystem, those organisms will probably cope well with the (minor) change. However, if we suddenly introduce oil into a place where it wasn't prevalent, the ecosystem is unlikely to cope well with it.
>While PAH are definitely unhealthy for higher animals, a number of common bacteria do eat them. Precisely because natural sources emit these since forever.
Bacteria proliferate at different rates depending on environmental conditions such as temperature; this is why we use refrigerators. There are stories [hanskrause.de] of mammoths (which went extinct thousands of years ago) being found in the Arctic with their flesh in "still-edible" condition. The U.S. Congress is now considering a plan to allow oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 25 2017, @08:26PM (1 child)
As anyone should ignore rhetorical "estimates" without a shred of evidence.
BTW, I mentioned millions of years, which you ignored too. ;)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fossil_species_in_the_La_Brea_Tar_Pits [wikipedia.org]
Note the biodiversity.
Agreed. Most ecosystems are not prepared to cope well with any sudden change, of whatever nature. However, virtually any is prepared to recover after one. Because shit happens, with mankind or without.
Yeah, but in this case the cop-out ain't working. ;) The everyone's favorite superbug, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, can and does grow literally anywhere and on anything.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16478452 [nih.gov]
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28314727 [nih.gov]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 27 2017, @12:48PM
> As anyone should ignore rhetorical "estimates" without a shred of evidence.
The estimate was about mussel beds and intertidal zones. NOAA has been monitoring [noaa.gov] mussel populations, and found that they oscillate. However, they also say [noaa.gov],
That's lasting damage.
I wrote "fritsd linked to an infographic showing effects ~34 years later" and you ignored that too.
> BTW, I mentioned millions of years, which you ignored too. ;)
You wrote:
How is that pertinent to the question of whether an oil spill can cause lasting damage?
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fossil_species_in_the_La_Brea_Tar_Pits [wikipedia.org]
> Note the biodiversity.
I note that many of those species are now extinct. The "La Brea Tar Pits" article says
Creatures of various species were trapped and killed; some of those species went extinct. To say the least, it doesn't support the claim of no lasting damage.
>Yeah, but in this case the cop-out ain't working. ;) The everyone's favorite superbug, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, can and does grow literally anywhere and on anything.
I didn't deny that bacteria are able to consume hydrocarbons. I acknowledge that. I'm saying that bacteria grow slowly under some conditions, such as cold. I didn't say that cold is lethal to them. I'm saying that in the instance of Prince William Sound, their activity is meagre enough that oil spilled in 1989 is still present.
Conversely, if an oil spill supported a sudden flourishing of bacteria, the bacteria themselves might be harmful. You gave an example of a pathogenic strain. Also, think of "blooms" of algae or dinoflagellates.