Oil in Wetlands Will Increase Hurricane Storm Surge

UPDATE: We now have a story up on the topic of wetlands and storm surge.

I haven't done any blogs on the BP Oil Spill up until now because I haven't been able to find a weather angle that others (including those writing the excellent stories in our AccuWeather.com Oil Spill Center) weren't covering, but I heard something on XM Radio the other night that I think might be a big point that's not being brought up much in the media.

The oil spill will add to continuing destruction of the Louisiana marshes & wetlands, which will increase storm surge to New Orleans and coastal Louisiana during the next hurricane.

I give credit to Rachel Maddow for being the only person that I've seen covering this topic. In her video on June 3rd, she issues these facts:

- Approximately 2.7 miles of wetlands in the path of a hurricane will reduce storm surge by 1 foot.- Wetlands protect against storm surge mainly because friction takes the energy out of the storm surge. - 40% of U.S. wetlands are in Louisiana. - 25-30 sq. miles of wetlands are already lost per year (or one football field per hour). - This decrease (not counting the oil spill) is caused by erosion & subsidence due to (ironically) oil & gas extraction.

An article about the wetlands vs. oil spill on Boston.com adds:

Of course, you may be able to find other numbers, or argue semantics or mathematics with me. And we don't even know what kind of storm the "storm surge by 1 foot" was based on, but the point is:

Wetlands matter and not just because of the reasons non-environmentalists can normally argue against -- because the marshes literally save lives during a Hurricane.

How much of the wetlands/marshes have been affected by the BP Oil Spill already? I couldn't find good answers to that; obviously some is occurring per the photo above. You can get a feel for it from NOAA's new Interactive Oil Map (screenshots from today below, hover over to switch form Observed Oil to Land Type, click to enlarge).

The Boston.com article said:

The worst-case situation that I can think of would be an early season storm that spreads the oil inland, then a late-season storm with an unusually high storm surge because the oil has killed the wetlands.

Why is removing oil from the wetlands such a problem? The article states:

And another article about potential solutions to restore the wetlands lists two out of three fixes that won't take effect until after Hurricane Season 2010.

If you're interested in reading more about what might happen when a hurricane hits the oil spill, check out our article "Florida to Louisiana under the Greatest Risk of Oil Contamination during Hurricane Season" or the NOAA Hurricane Oil Factsheet.

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