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Sylvia Earle: Her Royal Deepness
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20014 |
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Section : |
NATURAL SCIENCE
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| Issue
Date : |
8 / 1992 |
3,160 Words |
| Author
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Heather B. Hayes
Heather B. Hayes is a freelance writer living in the
Washington, D.C., area. |
Less than two months after Iraqi soldiers dumped an estimated 6 to 8 million gallons of oil into the Persian Gulf, Sylvia Earle was the first U.S. scientist to arrive on the scene and survey the damage. Earle, who is one of the world's foremost experts on marine biology and botany, was then chief scientist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). She had also served as an adviser in the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez spill.
As Earle flew over the blackened waters of the Persian Gulf in a Saudi Navy helicopter, she was amazed by the magnitude of the spill, and it horrified her to think about the irreversible damage that she knew was taking place beneath the slick. To the west of Earle, hundreds of oil fires, which, like the oil spill, were deliberately set by retreating Iraqi soldiers, raged unsympathetically. Though most worried about the fires' effect on the region's air quality, environmentalists quickly realized that the Gulf would also have to contend with, besides the oil slick on the surface, an equal or possibly additional amount of contaminants that would rain as the "oil spill from the sky."
Earle made three more trips to the region in 1991 to survey the restoration under way, each time finding reason to feel a little more confident about nature's resilience in the face of catastrophe: Green sprouts were beginning to poke through the oil-covered black bushes and ants were busily bringing up grains of clean, white sand from deep below to mask the ugliness on the face of the blackened desert.
The cleanup efforts are far from over; in fact, compared to the Exxon Valdez incident, man's efforts have achieved little in the Persian Gulf. Earlier this year, NOAA sent one of its principal research vessels, the Mount Mitchell, to the west side of the Persian Gulf to begin evaluating the environmental impact of the oil spill. Earle will be the chief scientist on leg five, the coral reef segment, of that project.
"The Gulf spill was without question the largest oil spill in history," Earle says sadly. "And it will never be the same. I don't think anyone expect that it can be restored to the way it was."
Champion of the deep
When Earle assumed the position of chief scientist at NOAA in October 1990 (the first woman so appointed), she spoke of her hopes for creating a greater ocean awareness, of preventing the further
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