OK, let's take a look at the actual report. According to the "Oil Budget Chart" above (Figure 1 in their report), NOAA estimates only 25% of the oil has been diverted, collected or otherwise definitively destroyed. The remaining 75% is still on or below the water's surface or buried in marsh and beach sediments (26%); or it evaporated or dissolved (25%), was naturally dispersed (16%), or was chemically dispersed (8%).
Evaporation probably has moved a lot of the hydrocarbon out of the water and into the air. But "dissolved" and "dispersed" are not the same thing as "gone." (Try drinking a nice tall glass of tea with a few spoonfuls of salt dissolved in it, and you'll get what I mean.) NOAA is assuming rapid biodegradation of the dispersed and dissolved oil, which may be reasonable in relative terms -- i.e., biodegradation in the hot Gulf is quicker than biodegradation in the frigid Arctic. But with no data provided on the actual rates of biodegradation, we don't have any way of knowing just how much of the oil has naturally biodegraded at this point. We also don't know what the intermediate breakdown products are, and what they do in the environment, and how long they last. Pesky but very important questions that can't be answered quickly, or without a dedicated research effort that hopefully (??) is underway.
And while we're chewing on this, there's this, too:
The numbers of birds, fish, turtles, and mammals killed by the use of Corexit will never be known as the evidence strongly suggests that BP worked with the Coast Guard, the Department of Homeland Security, the FAA, private security contractors, and local law enforcement, all of which cooperated to conceal the operations disposing of the animals from the media and the public.Welcome back, my friends. But then, you never really left, did you?
The majority of the disposal operations were carried out under cover of darkness. The areas along the beaches and coastal Islands where the dead animals were collected were closed off by the U.S. Coast Guard. On shore, private contractors and local law enforcement officials kept off limits the areas where the remains of the dead animals were dumped, mainly at the Magnolia Springs landfill by Waste Management where armed guards controlled access. The nearby weigh station where the Waste Management trucks passed through with their cargoes was also restricted by at least one sheriff's deputies in a patrol car, 24/7.
Robyn Hill, who was Beach Ambassador for the City of Gulf Shores until she became so ill she collapsed on the job one morning, was at a residential condominium property adjacent to the Gulf Shores beach when she smelled an overwhelming stench. She went to see where the odor was coming from and witnessed two contract workers dumping plastic bags full of dead birds and fish in a residential Waste Management dumpster, which was then protected by a security guard. Within five minutes, a Waste Management collection truck emptied the contents and the guard departed.
