The Oil Eaters~~~~~

Scientists are still working to deploy known oil-eaters, such as Alcanivorax, in the form of booms laced with slow-release fertilizer and the microbes. In experiments such microbial booms ate heavy fuel oil in two months and "the experimental waste water was clean enough to be released back to the sea," says environmental geneticist Peter Golyshin of Bangor University in Wales. But "in the Gulf of Mexico, the amount of oil is simply too big. The oil gets dispersed but there is not enough [nitrogen] and [phosphorus] to feed bacterial growth."

Ultimately, it is only microbes that can remove the oil from the ocean. "In the long run, it's biodegradation that removes most of the oil from the environment in these situations," Lee says. Or, as Joye puts it, "They're clever, they're tough, they can basically eat nails…. The microbes have to save us again."

Regardless, the oil will linger in the environment for a long time. The microbes break down hydrocarbons in "weeks to months to years, depending on the compounds and concentrations—not hours or days," Atlas notes. "Much of the real tar or asphalt compounds are not readily subject to microbial attack…. Tar tends to persist. Asphalt tends to persist."

Adds Valentine: "We wouldn't make roads out of them if the bacteria ate them."