Sprol

You’re seeing an oil spill off of the coast of Qatar. Spills like this are part of the job when working with oil tankers and huge volumes of fluids. They happen almost all the time.

Exploiting the vast reserves of petroleum in the Persian Gulf region has left unintended, if predictable consequences:

“The maritime people of the Gulf always depended on and cared for the marine and coastal environmental resources on which they depend. Since the discovery of oil, a rapid development process began, with some highly impressive results. This converted an area of extreme environmental hardship into one of the world’s highest per capita income groups. Some of the side-effects of this development process, however, are not entirely desirable. These include declining fish stocks, habitat loss and fragmentation, loss of biological diversity, declining primary marine productivity, as well as the pollution of water, biota, and inter tidal substrates. Perhaps not surprisingly, ecological degradation is also occurring from oil production, oil spills and oil transport. More oil from spills has been released into the Gulf than into any other region on Earth.” UNESCO

The practice of waging war also has a special impact on the natural world:

"One source of pollution that is often overlooked but is of particular interest to the Gulf is the effect of war and armed conflict. The speaker cited statistics of pollution in the Gulf produced through the Iran – Iraq War. The disturbing numbers relating to the Gulf War in 1991 of some 6 to 8 million barrels of oil being discharged into the Gulf dwarfs the numbers of the Exxon Valdez oil spill of some 500,000 barrels off the coast of Alaska." Qatar Petroleum

"Until the late 1960s, it had been almost taken for granted that the oceans were so vast that they would be able to cope with whatever pollution and wastes were dumped into them. Yet it was recognized early that ships, especially oil powered ships, could cause pollution. Both the United Kingdom and the United States introduced legislation in the 1920s to curb discharges of oil resulting from operations such as tank cleaning. Attempts to tackle the problem at an international level were unsuccessful, however, and the outbreak of World War II resulted in the problem being deferred."
Oceans Atlas

Now, of course, there are many many international maritime laws about pollution.

Many people are familiar with the Exxon Valdez spill. It was the largest oil spill in the United States since the 1968 Mandoil spill (pdf), and the largest tanker spill ever in Alaska. Yet Valdez ranks 41st in this list of the largest tanker spills in the world. But oil development spills oil all the time, not just when a particularly destructive if predictable accident happens. Prince William Sound has still not yet recovered.

"At first, many people repeated what was then thought as common knowledge, oil dissipates, nature heals quickly, all will be well in a year or two. This has not been the case with the Exxon Valdez. This massive 987-foot tanker has left a lingering, long-term effect on the natural habitat that surrounds these pristine waters, along with an enormous socio-economic effect that has left many people wondering when and where the next oil spill will be. Many associated with the recovery process, and its more than one hundred projects per year, say it will take longer than a human lifetime to determine if a full recovery is possible (Fine 1999)." Exxon Valdez

It usually takes a disaster to motivate people to change things for a while, and the Valdez wreck was no different. It spurred the passage of the Oil Pollution Act, which among other things banned single-hull vessels in U.S. waters. The EU may be in the process of banning them, but there seem to be some procedural issues.

Some bacteria thrive in oil contaminated seawater. They have evolved to prefer such environments due to natural underwater features called oil seeps.

"Not all oil in the ocean was put there by people. Natural seeps have been discharging petroleum hydrocarbons into the marine environment for millions of years. About 200 natural underwater oil seeps have been identified around the world. In Canada, natural seepage has been observed off the coasts of Labrador as well as the north coast of Baffin Island in the Arctic." Environment Canada

"Because spills are much more concentrated, their impacts on marine organisms are more intense, and in many respects qualitatively different than those of seeps… Toxic constituents are released steadily, but gradually, over the region, allowing currents and natural mixing to dilute their concentrations. Tar mounds on the ocean floor are colonized by bacteria, forming the basis of productive meiofaunal communities. Seep oil does not accumulate on the surface in very thick layers, nor does it cause oiling of many birds or result in heavily tarred beaches. Rocks and cliff faces in some areas show localized deposits of weathered tar.

Major spills, however, may blanket the sea surface of a large area with fresh oil. A thick, gooey water-in-oil emulsion, or “mousse,” often forms on the surface after oil spills, eventually falling to the ocean floor in large amounts or fouling the intertidal zone, beaches, rocky shores, and salt marshes. Organisms including larvae may have no opportunity to escape the sudden influx of oil and high concentrations of its dissolved toxic fractions. Spills often kill large numbers of animals including sea birds and marine mammals. For these reasons, Burger states that, “in any given area, the amount of oil from a catastrophic spill far overshadows the oil coming from natural seeps." County of Santa Barbara

"Sub-lethal effects that impair the ability of individual marine organisms to reproduce, grow, feed or perform other functions can be caused by prolonged exposure to a concentration of oil or oil components far lower than will cause death. Sedentary animals in shallow waters such as oysters, mussels and clams that routinely filter large volumes of seawater to extract food are especially likely to accumulate oil components. Whilst these components may not cause any immediate harm, their presence may render such animals unpalatable if they are consumed by man, due to the presence of an oily taste or smell." ITOPF

Sublethal toxic effects of oil spills are important for people who eat farmed fish, which can’t naturally escape elevated levels of toxins in the water, and lack a locally bred instinctive drive.