Not so magic microbes

Wasn't really planning to dive into the Gulf any time soon anyway, but there's apparently a recent uptick in instances of Vibro bacteria.

A naturally occurring bacteria in Louisiana's coastal waters, Vibrio Vulnificus, has caused three predatory bacterial attacks and one death this summer. The DHH said it’s safe to swim, provided you are not elderly, immune deficient, or suffering from liver disease. 

Vibrio Vulnificus occurs in salt water and brackish water, and it can infect victims through ingesting seafood, or from contact through swimming. This year's Louisiana victims were all infected inland in salt water bodies.

This isn't too unusual this time of year.  It's a primary reason  they tell you not to eat oysters during non - "r" months, after all.

But one reads this and wonders whatever happened to the "magic microbes" that supposedly had a taste for oil instead of flesh.  And why have they done nothing about this?

Every day, an airplane with contractors working for Taylor Energy Ltd. flies over a spot 12 miles south of the mouth of the Mississippi River looking for an oil sheen.

That spot was the doomed location of Taylor Energy's Mississippi Canyon 20-A production platform, which towered 550 feet above 28 producing oil and gas wells drilled in water 479 feet deep.

The platform and its pipelines disappeared on Sept. 15, 2004, when Hurricane Ivan crossed the area, accompanied by winds of 145 mph and waves estimated to be 71 feet high. The heavy pressure transferred to the ocean floor by those huge waves, which crossed the area once every 16.1 seconds at the height of the storm, caused a landslide that obliterated the platform.