of similar diasters in the past and they end to just get worse before they get better. what is your feeling about this? well, the futcher is unknown. unfortunately we have never had unfortunately, we have no baseline of an understanding of what this means. the exxon valdez in 1989 was a surface spill with much less oil. even that still has impacts 20 years later. i was with cnn off the coast of vera cruz in november looking at the oil spill of 31 years ago and there s still oil there. so while we are not sure of the extent of the damage, we know it will continue to have an impact on the environment and the people who rely on a healthy environment for years and decades to come. i had an interview with kent feinberg, and his argument is a lot of people are overselling what they re due. other people are being
i mean, you ve had experiences of similarky sasters in the past and they end to just get worse before they get better. what is your zbut feeling about this? well, the futcher is unknown. unfortunately we have never had unfortunately, we have no baseline of an understanding of what this means. the exxon valdez in 1989 was a surface spill with much less oil. even that still has impacts 20 years later. i was with cnn off the coast of vera cruz in november looking at the oil spill of 31 years ago and there s still oil there. so while we are not sure of the extent of the damage, we know it will continue to have an impact on the environment and the people who rely on a healthy
dispersants there, in addition to the concerns over dispersants you have oil free-flowing once again into the gulf. what concerns for, what environmental concerns do you have now that we re in day 83, where are we in terms of the effect of all of this still on the environment down there? well, the effect of all of this oil is just incredible. you ve got really several different spills, you ve got a deep surface spill, some of that oil doesn t ever get to the surface. it stays down in the water column, serves as food for bacteria, that can use up oxygen so there s a concern about oxygen depletion and the toxic effect on the juvenile species of a lot of the marine organisms. when oil gets to the surface, some of it is being skimmed, some being burned but a lot of it is being dispersed on the surface, that gets oil down in the water column, cnn has been running some beautiful pictures, taken by divers that were down in the subsurface looking at
we also, of course, now know that the figures that bp and all these companies were using, which were government figures about the impact of an oil spill, they were based on a surface spill, not something at such deep water depths, which, frankly, the government hadn t studied. all the data was wrong even if they had filled out the forms. we appreciate it tonight. breaking news, we have new information on tropical storm alex. the news is now that the hurricane watch that was from baffin bay all the way down to brownsville and la cruz mexico, that s a hurricane warning. the forecast is for this to become a hurricane in the overnight hours tonight. right now it s bumped itself up a little bit, 60, 65 miles per hour. you can see how the convection, the purple, if you will, has really gotten a lot stronger in the past couple hours. the forecast as itself we ll get rid of this whole thing here, throw it away.
have gained the system to their advantage, even if they got the environmental review. the bottom line is, if you talk to people who really cover this stuff closely, they say if there had been a real environmental test there at the end of the process, with a real hard look at what bp and others have been doing, maybe we wouldn t be in this spot right now, anderson? we also, of course, now know that the figures that bp and all these companies were using, which were government figures about the impact of an oil spill, they were based on a surface spill, not something at such deep water depths, which, frankly, the government hadn t studied. all the data was wrong even if they had filled out the forms. we have more information on the path of tropical storm alex. the news is now that the hurricane watch that was from baffin bay all the way down to brownsville and la cruz mexico, that s a hurricane warning.