s.) Of the remaining 4.1 million bbl., about 392,000 bbl. were either burned or skimmed from the surface, so that crude has been accounted for and is no longer part of the Gulf. But that leaves 90% of the total oil that actually made it into the water. </p>
<p>The federal government's happy report was based on the belief that everything but the residual oil that has reached shore was broken down enough by bacteria or some other mechanism that it no longer posed much of a threat. The UGA researchers, however