Ixtoc Revisited: '79 Cleanup, Recovery Can Inspire Gulf Community

Marine biologist who helped in Texas, Mexico encourages hope, caution.

ByABC News
July 28, 2010, 10:40 AM

August 17, 2010 — -- In 1979, the collapse of the Ixtoc 1 rig emptied about 140 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Two months after the explosion, the oil landed on Padre Island, Texas. There was a strip 170 miles long and 30 feet wide -- it looked like a paved highway.

Many in San Padre thought the area would never recover, but it did.

"To my amazement, we saw recovery right away in some places. But in others, we can still see evidence. The shrimp came back in about two years," said Wes Tunnell, a marine biologist, ecologist and self-described optimist, who has studied the impact of oil spills for decades.

Watch "World News with Diane Sawyer" for the latest on the oil spill tonight on ABC.

Tunnell says that the same could happen to the areas affected by the BP oil spill in April although it will likely take a little longer.

"The Gulf of Mexico is a hugely resilient body of water. There's the equivalent of one to two supertankers per year that seep into the Gulf of Mexico waters naturally. It populates the entire Gulf of Mexico with petroleum-eating bacteria. There's lots of them out there munching away on this oil all the time," Tunnell said.

"The difference in the northern Gulf of Mexico beaches is that their energy, their wave energy, is less than it is on the Texas coast. The wave energy helps in breaking the sand and the oil that's there. ... I think that's going to take place a little slower in Mississippi, Alabama and western Florida where the oil is on the beaches. So three to four years but it will recover," he said.

Tunnell said it surprised him and the Ixtoc spill cleanup crews that 2 1/2 years after the explosion, the area had recovered well.

"For most of us, it was the first major spill to deal with, we were just flabbergasted. As I see my colleagues today in the northern Gulf of Mexico that see all the oil coming in, that 'oh no, this place is going to be wiped out for years, decades or maybe forever.' That was our concern then but we were equally amazed at what happened to 140 million gallons of oil," Tunnell said.