By Pete Spotts in Hammond, Louisiana for the Christian Science Monitor
Forecasters expect an active hurricane season, raising concern that a storm could push more of the BP oil spill ashore. The Gulf’s biggest hurricanes are generally later in the season, however.
The 2010 Atlantic hurricane season opens today, and with it concerns over the effect the BP oil spill could have on coastal ecosystems if a major storm moves into the northern Gulf of Mexico and reaches land.
On one hand, hurricane forecasters and federal emergency officials say the first concern in any hurricane that makes landfall will be people. Yet healthy wetlands along the Gulf Coast – mainly west of the Mississippi Delta – are widely seen as a first line of defense against the storm surges tropical cyclones push ahead of them.
Marshes in and around the Delta region are already under assault. Sea levels are rising, and the widespread use of levees along the Mississippi River has starved the wetlands of fresh sediment the Mississippi River once delivered.
If oil from the Deepwater Horizon blowout invades the wetland soils, it can kill off marsh grasses at the roots, increasing the rate of erosion, ecologists say. With chemical dispersants mixed in, the brew also would be toxic to small marine animals that form a vital part of a marsh’s food chain.
A range of seasonal hurricane forecasters have indicated that this season is likely to be significantly more active than normal. Both the federal government and BP, meanwhile, have suggested that the leak might not be stopped before a relief well is completed in August.
“A hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico this year would be devastating,” says Qin Chen, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.
Read article and jump to pictures
Visit the Christian Science Monitor
Related posts at Mouth to Source:
