November 2010 - Parks & Recreation - 24

Who, What, Where & how Around the Parks

BY TH E N U M B E RS

The Oily Facts

A dime: The approximate

amount of oil fatal to a bird.
(International Bird Rescue
Research Center)

2,800: The number of sea otters

killed in the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil
spill. (http://library.thinkquest.org/
CR0215471/oil_spills.htm)

Less than 1: the percentage
of all oil-soaked birds that survive
(even after cleaning). (http://www.answers.
com/topic/oil-spill-1)
Kemp's Ridley Turtle:

the species that a gaming
website has determined
most likely to become
extinct due to the recent
oil spill. According to the
New York Times, " [a]
A heavily oiled Kemp's $5 bet on the turtle would
Ridley turtle recovered near win $9 if it's listed as extinct at
the Deepwater Horizon/BP any time because of the spill.
accident site.
Less likely species-the gulf
sturgeon, smalltooth sawfish and elkhorn coral-
have payout rates of 20-to-1. " (http://www.
nytimes.com/gwire/2010/05/24/24greenwirewebsite-offers-betting-on-spill-relatedextinc-84733.html)

22 Parks & Recreation

No v e m b e r 2 0 1 0

www.NRPA .ORG

1,700: The estimated
number of barrels of oil
that seep naturally each day
from coastal areas into U.S.
marine waters. (Oil seeps are
fairly common around the world both
underwater and aboveground. These natural
seeps occur when enough cracks and fissures
form above a reservoir of petroleum to enable
a small quantity of oil to escape.) (National
Research Council, National Academy of Sciences)
$4,300: The potential per-barrel fine BP may
have to pay citizens filing suit under the Clean
Water Act (the federal law empowering individual
citizens and citizen groups to bring suits to stop
water pollution and hold polluters accountable).
Several groups have already filed suit against
BP under the Clean Water Act-The Center
for Biological Diversity, Gulf Restoration
Network, Louisiana Environmental Action
Network, and Environment America, to
name a few. (http://www.thedailygreen.com/
environmental-news/latest/bp-gulf-oil-spillmyths-0622)
Kevin Costner: Inventor of an " oil vacuum

cleaner. " After the Exxon Valdez
spill in 1989, the actor sunk $24
million of his own money into
developing a patented system-
" Ocean Therapy " -designed to
quickly separate oil from water.
(http://theweek.com/article/
index/203378/bp-oil-spill-9strange-facts)

Nuclear Weapons: The Soviet Union's
method for shutting down oil well blowouts.
The Soviets successfully used controlled nuclear
blasts to cap runaway wells four times between
1966 and 1972. The popular Russian daily,
Komsomoloskaya Pravda reported
that " the underground explosion
moves the rock, presses on it, and,
in essence, squeezes the well's
channel. " (http://trueslant.com/
juliaioffe/2010/05/04/
nuke-that-slick/)

cmcderm1 / dreamstime, 123rf, benfish, hhakim, mattesimages / istock, NOAA, virginiamedia.com

520 million gallons: The amount of oil that
poured into the Persian Gulf during the Kuwait oil
spill of 1991-making it the worst oil spill in history.
(For comparison's sake, the 2010 Deepwater
Horizon oil spill dumped about 185 million gallons
into the Gulf of Mexico.) (http://www.pbs.org/
newshour/rundown/oilnumbers.html)

November 2010 - Parks & Recreation

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