Vast underwater concentrations of oil sprawling for miles in the Gulf
of Mexico from the damaged, crude-belching BP PLC well are
unprecedented in "human history" and threaten to wreak havoc on marine
life, a team of scientists said today, a finding confirmed for the first
time by federal officials.

Researchers aboard the F.G. Walton Smith vessel briefed
reporters on a two-week cruise in which they traced an underwater oil
plum 15 miles wide, 3 miles long and about 600 feet thick. The plumes
core is 1,100 to 1,300 meters below the surface, they said.

"Its
an infusion of oil and gas unlike anything else that has ever been seen
anywhere, certainly in human history," said Samantha Joye of the
University of Georgia, the expedition leader.

Bacteria are
breaking down the oils hydrocarbons in a massive, microorganism feeding
frenzy that has sent oxygen levels plunging close to what is considered
"dead zone" conditions, at which most marine life are smothered for a
lack of dissolved oxygen.

Such low-oxygen conditions were noticed
farther from the spill site, although Joye said she did not think the
process would immediately produce a dead zone, since low nutrient
concentrations in the water would limit the rate of the bacterial
consumption.

Joye said her team also measured extremely high
levels of methane, which is also spewing from the gushing BP well at up
to 10,000 times background levels in Gulf waters.

"I’ve been
working in the Gulf of Mexico for 15 years," Joye said. "I’ve never seen
methane concentration this high anywhere in the water."

Less
clear to researchers like Joye are what role the unprecedented
deployment of oil-dispersing chemicals are having on the undersea
gathering of oil. She said dispersants likely played a role in keeping
the oil underwater but that they are "certainly not required" to produce
such an effect, given the deep-water — as opposed to surface —
injection of oil and gas.

Also still unclear, she said, are the
long-term effects of oil and dispersant use on fisheries.

"The
primary producers — the base of the food web in the ocean — is going
to be altered. Theres no doubt about that," Joye said. "We have no idea
what dispersants are going to do to microorganisms. We know they are
toxic to many larvae. Its impossible to know what the impacts are going
to be."

A full understanding and the full impact to the Gulfs
fishery may be years away, she said.

"Its a very, very
complicated problem, and there are a lot of people doing fisheries work
to try to get a handle on this, but its going to be months or years
probably before we realize the full consequences of this spill," Joye
said.

Asked to react to BP officials earlier assertions that the
Gulf of Mexico was a large enough body of water to absorb the impact of
an oil spill under way, Joye bristled.

"The solution to pollution
is not dilution," she said. "Its an excuse, and its arm-waving, and it
takes away from the important things that we should be thinking about,"
she said, such as measuring the scope of the spill and its effects.

Federal confirmation

Federal officials for
the first time today confirmed the researchersfindings, although Coast
Guard Adm. Thad Allen, who is leading the federal response to the
spill, questioned the use of the term "plume" to describe that
underwater oil.

"The term ‘plumehas been used for quite awhile,
[but] I think what we are talking about are concentrations," he said.
"’Cloudis a better term."

Joyes teams results echo the
findings of a University of South Florida team aboard the Weatherbird
II vessel.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
chief Jane Lubchenco said her agency had finished testing water samples
collected by the USF team that confirmed the presence of the oil.

"The
bottom line is, yes there is oil in the water columns," she told
reporters. "Thats confirmed for the sites we’ve done the analyses."

BP
CEO Tony Hayward had disputed the presence of plumes, saying on June 6
that there was "no evidence" of their existence. BP spokesman John Pack
said today they would be paying attention to the data that is coming in.

"We
will obviously listen to what they have to say," Pack said.

Lubchenco
said the test confirms the presence of subsurface oil, which she said
federal scientists suspected was present.

Lubchenco said that oil
was found in "very low concentrations" in the range of less than 0.5
parts per million. NOAA tested samples from three collection sites,
confirming the presence of subsea oil 40 nautical miles northeast of the
well. She said samples from a site 42 nautical miles northeast were
inconclusive and that samples from a site 142 miles southeast "were not
consistent with the oil spill."

"That does not mean it doesn’t
have significant impact. A more complete picture will require additional
information, and we’re in the process of getting that," Lubchenco said.

"We
remain concerned about the location of oil on the surface and under the
sea," Lubchenco said. "We are attacking it aggressively to mitigate the
harm and understand the impact."

Lubchenco said "there is
definitely oil subsurface" and that NOAA would continue to analyze water
samples as they were collected.

"We will continue to do research
to understand where it is and in what concentrations and what are its
impacts," she said.

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