US GOvt says no.
Damn bureaucrats. No wonder nothing ever gets nuked.
There are no plants at a depth of 5000 feet; sunlight just doesn’t get that far down. There is animal life at that depth though, and in fact right at the well location; the other day I saw some sort of long, skinny fish swimming by in video footage of the well.
This was a low level denial:
Come February, Steven Chu will be asked about Meuller’s statement and reply “Who is Stephanie Mueller?”
There’s one hell of a lot of wildlife being killed right now and for a long time to come.
Indeed.
I absolutely can’t comment on the specific plant-life that may or may not be down by the blow-out preventer, but here’s an accurate description of how plants can survive at great depths without sunlight (from blurtit.com -not very scientific, I know):
Here is an outdated Wired article noting that life exists at least 35,800 ft. below the ocean’s surface: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.12/dive.html
With a little bit more time I’m sure I could find more up to date figures, but I think it illustrates the point clearly enough.
Here’s another link that backs your assertion, though: Ocean Zones - body, used, water, process, Earth, life, plants, chemical, form
Of note it this selection:
So, if you replace “plants” with “producers”, the same effect is theoretically possible.
Let’s not lose sight, though, of the question of whether those plants or other wee beasties would be connected to the food chain to the extent that harmful material would find its way into your bowl of gumbo.
Calculate the volume of water in the gulf of mexico.
Make a guesstimate of how much radioactive material a nuke would create. It aint that much mass wise.
Compare that to how much NATURAL radioactive material already exists in the gulf waters. (Hint, there is a bunch of Uranium in seawater).
And this IS WORST case, cause you know what they are going to do IF they do use a nuke? They are going to put it so darn far down the hole that virtually none of the radiactive material will escape…cause thats the whole POINT of putting the nuke down there in the first place, so no (or very little) shit (oil or radioactive crap) will come out of the hole anymore.
Heck, for that matter, do some research and find out how much radioactive crap is in the OIL itself.
I’m talking about the effect on local wildlife, not the entire Gulf of Mexico. Besides…
Yeah, I know. I mean it certainly seems unlikely from a practical sense, but so does the idea that radiation would get passed from soil to grass to cow to humans. It doesn’t mean that it isn’t a possibility.
I think if I were a scientific researcher trying to track this sort of thing I’d be less worried about the radiation finding its way to humans and more concerned that it would decimate the producers in the area, which appear to be the most likely effected anyway, and in turn populations important to American jobs (like shrimp, for instance) would starve to death.
Let me throw out my disclaimer again that I’ve never claimed that radiation would actually do any of this -simply that it’s a variable that needs to be considered.
So, basically, you are the type of guy that would worry about accidentally driving over some forest mice with the fire truck while trying to put out a devastating forest fire?
Cause, honestly, thats pretty much the position you appear to have here. Besides the fact we don’t even know if there are any very special mice to worry about down there in the first place. And if there are, they are certainly currently getting large quantities of nasty crude oil spewed on them.
Let me say this again. It takes HIGH levels of radiation before animal and plant life is significantly impacted.
Well…