Imagine wanting to go camping, fishing, and enjoying the beauty of nature with your family, but when you get to where you want to spend your planned getaway, all you can see are dead marine creatures floating on the rivers and overly polluted surroundings caused by an oil spill.
And while you call for an immediate hazardous spill response in Bolingbrook, IL, you wonder if nature itself can ever be restored. You wonder when you will get to see creatures living freely in a healthy habitat and when you and your family will be able to enjoy your outdoor activities again.
The effects of oil spills can result in fast and long-term damage to the environment that can last for decades. And here are the major consequences and effects of an oil spill on our environment:
Marine Ecosystems
Do you know that a liter of oil can contaminate 1 million liters of water? Then imagine the effects of the Exxon Valdez oil spill disaster in 1989, where 26,000 gallons of oil remained trapped in the Alaska shoreline, which took about three decades of rehabilitation!
Oil spills are detrimental as they coat everything around them. It can plunge an entire ecosystem into a nightmare and make it uninhabitable for decades. If this reaches the marshes, wetlands, and mangrove forests, it is absorbed by plants, which later become damaged and prevent photosynthesis. Excess oil also sinks and makes its way to the reefs, where a majority of marine life lives, damaging their homes.
Marine Creatures
Oil spills are generally dangerous to all marine life. Fish larvae and eggs that are exposed to oil can be killed, just like how the Exxon Valdez oil spill destroyed billions of herring eggs and salmon. Oil spills have a smothering effect on every marine creature’s physical abilities, such as reproduction, respiration, and thermoregulation.
The catastrophic damage of the largest oil spill in history, the Persian Gulf oil spill, with a whopping 380 to 580 million gallons of oil, killed over 114,000 animals. Included in the list of harmed marine mammals are dolphins, whales, sea otters, and seals.
Birds
Not only does an oil spill affect marine creatures but also different species of birds, such as migratory and sea birds. Unlike sea birds that can sense danger and relocate for safety, some sea birds end up covered in oil after diving for food. Remember what happened to the countless birds in the Gulf of Mexico, where it was nesting and mating season, when one of the major oil spill disasters in history struck?
Birds that ingested oil ended up with damaged internal organs and later died. Due to the amount of oil on the bird’s feathers, they were not able to fly and became vulnerable to either hyperthermia or overheating.
Habitats and Breeding Grounds
An oil spill can attach itself to rocks and grains of sand. This harms the lives of creatures such as sea turtles that come offshore to lay their eggs. Their eggs can be damaged by oil, and even hatchlings can unknowingly delve back into the oil-infected ocean and become vulnerable to the damages of the spill. Call for immediate hazardous spill response in Bolingbrook, IL to save the wildlife habitats of these creatures.
Food Chain
With its severity and huge amount, an oil spill is damaging to everything. This will greatly affect the global food chain. The cycle of food goes from primary producers, such as plankton, bacteria, and other creatures consuming oil, to primary (shrimp-like creatures), secondary (small fish, mackerel, tuna), and tertiary consumers (sharks). When this is disrupted.
Bottomline
Knowing the dangers of oil spills in our environment should be taught to raise awareness and to make us responsible for caring for our planet and ensuring the safety of our lives. To help keep our planet safe, lend a hand to our mission of fuel spill cleanup at Bolingbrook. Reach us, Green Tech Spill Response, at 630-392-6844. You may also send us an email at greentechspillresponse@hotmail.com.
