Remembering the 9th Anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Disaster [View all]

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The Gulf of Mexico is more than oil and gas

As the Trump administration proposes to rollback regulations on offshore drilling, let’s take a look at why these safety measures were put in place to begin with.

Nine years ago, on April 20th, 2010, the Gulf of Mexico faced the most devastating environmental disaster in United States history. The BP Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded 50 miles off the Louisiana coast, killing 11 people. An estimated 210 million gallons of oil and 1.8 million gallons of chemical dispersants seeped into the deep ocean, polluting the coast and the seafloor.

It wasn’t until five years later, in July of 2015, that BP finally agreed to pay a $20 billion settlement over 15 years.

The journey to that settlement was a hard one and often discouraging. Ocean Conservancy tracked and publicized the impacts of the oil on the Gulf and its wildlife, while BP spread lies that their oil disaster was “good for the Gulf.”

When the settlement was announced and BP was finally held accountable for its actions, our celebration was mixed with horror as we read the damage assessment—a full report on the extent of the oil impacts. Hundreds of thousands of sea turtles, marine mammals and birds died, along with trillions of larval fish. An area 20 times the size of Manhattan is still polluted and buried on the Gulf seafloor.


Much more: https://oceanconservancy.org/blog/2019/04/15/remembering-9th-anniversary-deepwater-horizon-oil-disaster/




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