hidden impact of the BP oil spill

[Good Mind Seeds]

Julia Whitty, acclaimed author, diver, and environmental correspondent for Mother Jones, reveals the hidden impact of the BP oil spill on the foundation of ocean life, the Deep Sea Scattering Layer.

She is critical of the statements by EPA and BP that most of the oil has already disappeared and calls for the banning of chemical dispersants and the rebuilding of the Louisiana marshlands by freeing the flow of the Mississippi River.

Recorded on August 6, 2010, in Sebastopol, CA.

[Good Mind Seeds]

Julia Whitty
For Love and Protection of the Deep Ocean - on the impact of the BP oil spill
Julia Whitty is a diver, former nature documentary filmmaker, author and investigative journalist. As environmental correspondent for Mother Jones she had just returned from the Gulf Coast. She wrote: "BP and its partners reckless quest has endangered and perhaps condemned not just the Gulf Coast, but the largest, richest, most pristine, most biologically important, and last completely unprotected ecosystem left on Earth: the deep ocean."

Julia Whitty explains why the deep ocean is the foundation of life for the upper layer of the sunlit sea. Many whales, dolphins, seals, sea turtles, sharks, manta rays, and smaller predatory fish are nocturnal hunters, dependent on the movements of a vast community of organisms that live in the deep ocean. That community is known as the Deep Scattering Layer. And this Deep Scattering Layer that rises and falls with day and night and that is visited by the creatures of the sunlit sea is threatened by the invisible part of the gigantic out-pour that never came to the surface because it was hit by chemical dispersant and now made doubly invisible by the White House climate and energy adviser, Carol Browner, who claims that 75% of the oil has already disappeared.

But researchers and divers report on huge clouds of dispersed oil, and of dissolved natural gas and methane that remain below the surface and now move around the gulf. These toxic clouds are separating the creatures of the deep ocean from those in the twilight and sunlit zones. And wherever the clouds of oil and gas move in, the creatures from above and below have to travel through the poisonous brew twice in one day to survive.

The second part of the program has a more personal cast. After reading from her new book, Deep Blue Home, the amazing story of the encounter with an ancient iceberg while diving off Newfoundland, Whitty responds to a rich variety of questions about diving, close encounters with sea life, the invisible rivers that flow beneath the surface of the seas, coral reefs - and more.

You can reach Julia Whitty here: WEBSITE <julia.whitty.googlepages.com> BLOG <deepbluehome.blogspot.com>

PART 1:
www.tucradio.org/JuliaWhittyONE.mp3

PART 2:
www.tucradio.org/JuliaWhittyTWO.mp3