How to clean oil spill pollution? How about doing nothing?

The enormous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is still very hot topic, mostly because the recent cleaning efforts proved to be inadequate to cleanup the huge environmental mess. Some scientists suggest different approach and are saying that doing nothing to clean this oil spill would be much better option compared to current aggressive "gung ho" cleaning tactics.

British scientists from the Liverpool University said that it would be much better for environment to have done nothing about the enormous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico except to keep the oil out at sea.

This is because the aggressive cleanup tactics uses different oil-dispersing chemicals that have been dumped into the sea, and which in the end might become even more damaging to the marine life than the oil itself.

Some previous experiences showed that containing the oil out at sea but otherwise leaving it alone to disperse and evaporate naturally is better in the long run but this option is regarded as politically unacceptable because public and media pressure requires quick action. Politicians need to do something quick or they might end up losing votes during the next selections, and this is really the main reason for frequent use of "gung ho" approach in cleaning oil spills.

The latest estimates are horrifying: The U.S. government estimates close to 60,000 barrels (2.5 million gallons/9.5 million litres) of oil a day are spewing from the damaged BP Plc oil well on the seabed about a mile (1.6 km) below the surface.

Among the areas that are worst hit with this latest oil spill are no doubt Louisiana's fragile wetlands, and this is sure to cause huge damage to many nearby ecosystems. You have probably already seen dreadful images of birds and other wildlife covered in oil.

Simon Boxall, an expert at Britain's National Oceanography Centre, said how there were three golden rules regarding oil spills:"The first is don't spill it in the first place: the second is, if you do spill it, try and pick it up as quickly and easily as possible, and the third is that once oil leaks in the open ocean, the best thing to do is leave well alone.

But doing nothing certainly doesn't look good from political point of view.

Interesting facts about oil spills

Oil spill refers to any unintentional release of an oil into the environment due to human activity (releases of crude oil from tankers, offshore platforms, drilling rigs and wells).

Oil spills have extremely negative environmental impact, they cause great damage to marine wildlife, and particularly vulnerable are birds because oil makes them extremely sensitive to temperature fluctuations and much less buoyant in the water, and once birds ingest oil that covers their feathers this causes serious kidney damage, altered liver function, and digestive tract irritation, leading to death in many cases.

Oil pollution is much more serious problem than many people think it is. In fact, in period between 1990-1999 an average of 150,000 tons of oil spilled each year into the world's waterways.

In order to determine the volume of some oil spill researchers observe the thickness of the film of oil and its appearance on the surface of the water. If the surface area of the spill is also known, the total volume of the oil can be easily calculated.

Probably the most famous oil spill of all time is Exxon Valdez oil spill that occurred in 1989. Exxon Valdez released around 11 million gallons of crude oil causing deaths to many marine animals, especially birds.

Oil spills are usually cleaned with dispersants that have the ability to break down oil much quicker compared to some other cleaning methods. However, these dispersants can be also quite harmful for environment because they can be absorbed by marine life, and some studies have even showed that in some cases these dispersants do much greater environmental damage than the spill itself.

Gulf of Mexico oil spill is the worst oil spill in the U.S. history, and its cleaning costs will climb over 1 billion dollars.

Oil from Gulf of Mexico spill to pollute Florida beaches

The latest report says that the oil from Gulf of Mexico spill is coming closer and closer to Florida beaches, and officials say that the oil slick, containing thousands of tar balls, is only nine miles from Pensacola on the Florida panhandle, meaning that is almost inevitable that it will be soon seen on Florida beaches.

Oil spill may reach Florida beaches in a couple of days so it is really no surprise that workers have been in a hurry to place more booms along the threatened coastline in an effort to protect its beaches and wildlife.

Florida Governor Charlie Crist is well aware of this danger and he already acknowledged that "the goal is to remove oil from near shore waters and prevent or minimize any potential impacts on our state".

Hopefully Florida won't be hit as hard as Louisiana where White House even had to approve the construction of five sand barriers, off its coastline, to prevent the worst possible scenario. Still, many feel that Obama's administration was too slow with this regulation, and slow administration is the last thing country needs right now to protect its coasts.

The clean-up costs are nearing the $1 billion mark (current estimates say around $990 million, and the success is still far from being guaranteed.

It will be very interesting to see whether the oil's polluting nature that was so clearly visible in this latest gigantic oil spill will be enough to convince United States that they should do everything in their power to ensure clean energy future. Or will good old Uncle Sam yet again humbly bow to "almighty" oil lobbies.

Oil spills have long-term negative effect on environment

Oil spills, especially the really large oil spills, like this was the case with infamous 1989 Exxon Valdez tanker spill can present a source of pollution for decades. In fact, scientists have recently reported that oil from the Exxon Valdez tanker spill that happened 20 years ago still lies trapped beneath its beaches, meaning that it still pollutes shores in the Prince William Sound, Alaska.

It now turns out that these oil spills last much longer than scientists have previously thought. The most scientists believed that the nature with the small help of technology would be enough to quickly remove traces of oil but sadly this was not the case with the Exxon Valdez spill, one of the worst environmental disasters in history.

At first it looked like the oil will vanish in few years time, as the starting rate of which oil was disappearing was 70 percent but very soon disappearance of the oil has heavily decreased to only about 3-4 % per year. Current estimates say that today there is around 20,000 gallons of oil still remaining, still causing environmental damage in this part of the world.

And the worst part in this whole story is that oil spills around the Arctic could become much more frequent, especially as climate change is melting up the ice cover and warming up the Arctic area, and with it exposing Arctic to oil exploration and shipping through sea routes such as the Northwest Passage.

We still haven't learned enough from the past mistakes, and any new mistake of this kind could cause yet another big environmental disaster.

This image shows what kind of damage can oil spill do to wildlife.