Where is the oil?

This, from ABCNews, is fascinating:

For 86 days, oil spewed into the Gulf of Mexico from BP's damaged well, dumping some 200 million gallons of crude into sensitive ecosystems. BP and the federal government have amassed an army to clean the oil up, but there's one problem -- they're having trouble finding it.

At its peak last month, the oil slick was the size of Kansas, but it has been rapidly shrinking, now down to the size of New Hampshire.

Today, ABC News surveyed a marsh area and found none, and even on a flight out to the rig site Sunday with the Coast Guard, there was no oil to be seen.

"That oil is somewhere. It didn't just disappear," said Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser.

Salvador Cepriano is one of the men searching for crude. Cepriano, a shrimper, has been laying out boom with his boat, but he's found that there's no oil to catch.

"I think it is underneath the water. It's in between the bottom and the top of the water," Cepriano said.

Even the federal government admits that locating the oil has become a problem.

"It is becoming a very elusive bunch of oil for us to find," said National Incident Cmdr. Thad Allen.

...

Still, it doesn't mean that all the oil that gushed for weeks is gone. Thousands of small oil patches remain below the surface, but experts say an astonishing amount has disappeared, reabsorbed into the environment.

"[It's] mother nature doing her job," said Ed Overton, a professor of environmental studies at Louisiana State University.

Experts: Gulf of Mexico Oil is Breaking Up

The light crude began to deteriorate the moment it escaped at high pressure, and then it was zapped with dispersants to speed the process along. The oil that did make it to the ocean's surface was broken up by 88-degree water, baked by 100-degree sun, eaten by microbes, and whipped apart by wind and waves.

Interesting stuff... I mean, we've been hearing about how environmentally disastrous this spill either is or is going to be for nearly 100 days... and now we're seeing these reports.

Thankfully, we know that environmentalists would never falsify or exaggerate a disaster to further an agenda.

Never.

Ask Al Gore.

Crossposted at Wizbang.

Comments

[tim aka The Godless Heathen]

"[It's] mother nature doing her job"

Well imagine that.

[Trimegistus]

Since a catastrophic spill would look bad for the Obama administration, the media are busy minimizing its impact.

[Shifty1]

As a gulf-coastie my self, I've been arguing this since the beginning of the debacle. Namely, that the idea that this would horribly pollute the entire Gulf is ludicrous. After all, it's not like the planet He created is so dang fragile that we could break it THAT easily....

[Shifty1]

And Trimegistus...I don't think in this instance it's so much they are hiding the impact as it is they have considered that the positive benefits of this "disaster" NOT being as bad as they had been telling us it is (positive benefits for Teh One, that is) outweigh the damage all the enviro-weenies will suffer for doom-and-glooming us for the last 3 months..

Next will come the revelation that the Lightworker himself has been causing the oil to disperse through his creative energies and unparalelled genius..

[Lou]

I'm sorry, I do not believe that millions of gallons of oil just disappeared or broke down that quickly. It's laying on the floor thanks to the chemical dispersants and solvents. It's still there people!