Oil spills like the Deepwater Horizon spill have the potential to create literal “Tar Heels” of North Carolina residents.
On Wednesday, the UNC Alumni Center hosted their first Think Fast Forum discussing the long term effects of the oil spill on North Carolina.
Four University professors contributed to the forum, discussing issues such as the physical processes that occur in the coastal system, how underwater oil plumes disperse, the impacts of petroleum on near shore ecosystems and the liability caused by the oil spill.
Rick Luettich, the director of UNC’s Institute for Marine Sciences, explained that the loop current, which starts in the Gulf of Mexico, travels through the Florida Strait and enters the Gulf Stream could have potentially brought oil up the Atlantic coast, tarnishing North Carolina’s shores.
The current cut itself off in Florida, however, and oil from the spill did not enter the Atlantic.
Had this breakdown in the current not occurred, Luettich said oil could have reached North Carolina’s coasts within one to two months after the oil rig explosion.
But the question of what North Carolina can do to prepare for future oil spills lingers nonetheless.
Michael Piehler, an assistant professor at UNC’s Institute for Marine Sciences, said the best approach for North Carolina is to establish preventative measures in the case of a spill.
“The best we can do is plan and plan and plan,” Piehler said.
