Category: Gulf Oil Catastrophe

As the five-year anniversary of the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig approaches, a new report looks at how twenty species of wildlife are faring in the aftermath of the disaster.

Researchers studying the impact of the Deepwater Horizon spill on communities of beach microbes saw a succession of organisms and identified population changes in specific organisms that marked the progress of the oil’s breakdown.

Up to 10 million gallons (38 million liters) of crude oil from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill has settled at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, where it is threatening wildlife and marine ecosystems, according to a new study.

This Tuesday, close to five years after an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig claimed 11 lives and poured millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, a judge in New Orleans will begin his final reckoning for one of the worst environmental disasters in US history.

The US supreme court on Monday rejected BP’s challenge to a settlement agreement over the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, which the oil giant said allowed certain businesses to get payouts despite being unable to trace their losses to the disaster.

A seminal paper published in 2012 estimated that of the 200 million gallons discharged into the environment, half never surfaced to form slicks but remained trapped deep in the ocean. Researchers have just completed a study, published today, in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, on how much of that trapped oil rained down to the ocean floor, and where it fell.

Officials approved plans to spend $627 million on 44 projects meant to aid recovery from the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, but environmentalists are fuming that $58 million will go to an Alabama beachfront hotel they say will hurt rather than help the Gulf.

BP acted “recklessly” and bears most of the responsibility for the nation’s worst offshore oil spill, a federal judge concluded Thursday, exposing the energy giant to roughly $18 billion in additional penalties.