As oil from the Deepwater Horizon disaster continues to reach the Gulf Coast shoreline, environmental scientists are looking to enlist natural forces to assist in reducing how much oil makes it to land. In particular, North America’s largest river is being eyed as a potential ally in the ongoing battle to minimize damage to beaches and coastal wetlands.
Scientists Robert Twilley and Guerry Holm from Louisiana State University, working in association with the National Science Foundation, calculate that the rate of flow in the Mississippi River, and the portion of the river’s volume that flows into nearby wetland systems, will help to provide a counteracting force. The flow of fresh water from the river and through the wetlands will help sweep spilled oil away from the shoreline. According to Science Daily, Twilley and Holm note that the flow volume in the Mississippi is currently high, which will provide greater benefit and protection now than it will in the later summer months when the seasonal variations in river levels typically witness a decline.
And as National Geographic reports, others who are investigating the very same phenomenon of the buffering power of the Mississippi are proposing additional measures. Though the network of levees, canals and flow control structures were built with good intentions and with the goal of flood protection in mind, they have dramatically altered the form and the function of the Mississippi River over the decades. National Audubon Society scientist Paul Kemp proposes manipulation of the system of levees and canals to adjust how much water goes in which direction to target the flushing capacity of the river and wetland flow where it can do more clean up work.
Currently, as National Geographic explains, at the southern end of the river some 70 percent of the river’s flow rate goes through the Mississippi’s main channel while 30 percent is forked off to flow into and through the Atchafalaya River. Kemp proposes modifying this to an 80-20 split, maintaining that the additional flow through the main channel and associated wetlands will do more good where it’s more critically needed, as the coastal regions at the mouth of the Atchafalaya are comparatively unharmed by the oil. As with Holm and Twilley, Kemp notes that time is of the essence: flow rates are high now, but we can expect them to diminish over the summer months.
Photo by NASA via Wikimedia Commons.