Heavily Oiled Salt Marsh Summary

The article "Heavily Oiled Salt Marsh following the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, Ecological Comparisons of Shoreline Cleanup Treatments and Recovery" by Scott Zengel and others examined the effectiveness and ecological effects of different oiled marsh “cleanup” treatment methods used in the treatment test area as its stated purpose. They use the reality of unfortunate spill events to reflect on lessons from past experiences and gain more understanding in how to best approach handling the response. This use is the overlying importance of the article. Specifically, wetlands play a vital part of the eco-system in areas around Louisiana where the Deepwater Horizon operated. These areas are difficult to treat and have shown in the past to have …show more content…
From the initial traits each test area, three different outcomes seemed to occur from the study areas. Purely mechanical cleaning means seemed to have some detrimental effects of driving oil further into the soil of the wetlands, something that was discovered when these mats of oil were unburied by natural processes when they evaluated post-cleaning. Strictly manual means, though time consuming showed the least amount of oil mats left in each test section. The purely Lastly, where they replanted wetlands seemed to increase the recovery, showing more so than just cleaning, a better level of health of other vegetation and wildlife such as crabs that live there. These results are fundamentally important as the typical human response in the event of a oil spill and in life in general is to do something as quickly as possible and move on. "Everything must be done now", a stereotype held by many in America. The study showed that this type of response with strictly mechanical cleaning would end up doing a lot of harm to a level the oil does just being there. A conclusion of a mixed, calculated approach to cleaning oil is the importance this study