As British Petroleum shows some success in diverting oil from its ruptured well on the seabed, scientists have discovered vast plumes of undersea oil—one the size of Manhattan. The ecological implications are hard to grasp because it mostly is lurking out of sight. AP provides this:

The depth of the gushing leaks and the use of more than 560,000 gallons of chemicals to disperse the oil, including unprecedented injections deep in the sea, have helped keep the crude beneath the sea surface. Marine scientists say diffusing and sinking the oil helps protect the surface species and the Gulf Coast shoreline but increases the chance of harming deep-sea reefs.

"At first we had a lot of concern about surface animals like turtles, whales and dolphins," said Paul Montagna, a marine biologist at Texas A&M University Corpus Christi who studies Gulf reefs. "Now we’re concerned about everything."

No matter how damaging the spill ultimately proves, warns the New York Times, this country will continue its hunger for oil—and that means offshore drilling will continue. This scenario cannot change without a wholesale shift in energy policies stimulated by strong incentives by the federal government.

Speaking of the feds, more congressional hearings into the spill are scheduled this week, beginning today. The Interior Department and its policies on handling offshore oil drilling will be scrutinized. We can only hope they zero in on exploratory offshore drilling in the Arctic Ocean planned to begin this summer by Shell Oil. The same flawed approval process that allowed BP to drill in the Gulf was used in granting a permit for Shell in the Arctic.