Some of it, but not much, accumulates, and the rest is passed through as waste, Button said. Hydrocarbons, unlike complex molecules such as DDT, do not accumulate in the environment. Bacteria can only eat the watersoluble hydrocarbons. The heavier hydrocarbons stick together in a tarlike goo that thickens every day. National Marine Fisheries Service biologist Steve Zimmerman said the crude is sloshing around in bays and coves, moving in and out with the tide, separating more and more by the day into watersoluble factions, and thicker and thicker tar.
Crude oil is made up a variety of hydrocarbons.
These range from the extremely light and volatile molecules refined to create gasoline and toulene to the heavy molecules that make up asphalt and plastics. Some of this goo could float around for years. A blanket of it has already formed on Naked Island, McRoy said. Mopping it up, dissolving it or washing it off the beaches with highpressure hoses is virtually impossible, scientists said. Man can't do anything to clean up the hydrocarbons that dissolve in the water.