It’s been 15 months since the well responsible for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill was “plugged.”  I put the word plugged in quotes because it is actually still leaking, just not at the high rate that it did over the course of a summer.   It was the biggest marine oil disaster in human history.  11 people were killed in the explosion that started it.  The amount of oil that leaked is somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 million barrels.  The media no longer covers the story in any real sense.  Updates are sparse at best, and even then you have to go looking for them.  The companies that were find legally liable, BP, Haliburton and Transocean, are currently battling it out in court over who owes who for what.  Meanwhile, the report of official findings determined that all three cut corners to save costs knowing (or at least they should have known) of the dangers involved.  All three companies continue to operate.  BP profited 5.3 billion dollars in 2011.  Haliburton saw 6 billion in revenue in the 3rd quarter of 2011 alone.  Transocean at least is dogged by financial troubles but continues to find business all over the globe.

Meanwhile, over a year after the disaster has dropped from the public eye, disturbing facts about the state of the ecosystem in the Gulf go unreported to the public at large.  Dolphins and whales continue to die at twice the normal rate.  In February 2011, the birthing season for dolphins, the director of the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies in Gulfport reported that dead baby dolphins were washing up along the Mississippi and Alabama shorelines at about 10 times the normal number.

For some reason, they’ve started aborting or they were dead before they were born; the average is one or two a month. This year we have 17 and February isn’t even over yet.

In July of this year, BP released a report stating that the economy of the Gulf had recovered and that no more economic effects of the spill would be felt in the area outside of oyster harvesters.  Meanwhile, crab fishers are reporting a 75 percent decrease in hauls since the spill to present.  The crabs they have been catching have been “coming up dead, discolored, or riddled with holes.”

Dr. Riki Ott has been working in the Gulf.  She is experienced in working with victims in oil spill areas.  Many of the chemicals used as dispersants in the Gulf are on the EPA’s watch list and are known carcinogens.  Dr. Ott has reported finding these chemicals in high amounts during multiple autopsies on people who have died in the months following the spill.  Blood tests of residents and cleanup workers in Alabama came back positive for a range of chemicals characteristic of both dispersants and oil.  The highest concentration value was four times the 95th percentile.  In March 2011, it was reported that data collected by NASA shows that the toxic compounds released from the spill became airborne and significant quantities were brought onshore by precipitation, thereby exposing coastal populations to chemical poisoning and perhaps explaining why there were numerous reports by people living along the Gulf Coast that it was raining oil and dispersant during the summer months.  BP forbade its cleanup crews from wearing masks or any protective gear other than gloves during cleanup; bad PR.

Two of the three companies responsible for unmeasurable human suffering and environmental destruction continue to make money hand over fist.  The media doesn’t even remember that it happened.  Meanwhile, people continue to contract illnesses and find their livelihoods as fishermen further diminished.  BP’s system of administering reparations for damages was so rushed and crooked that the Attorneys General have had to sue and audit the company in an effort to understand what they are doing.  Most recipients of payments received less than a year’s pay and are now legally prevented from suing BP if new information arises.

As of the writing of this blog, nobody has been charged with any level of criminal negligence in the deaths of at least 11 people and the causing of billions of dollars of property damage, environmental destruction, animal cruelty, or undermining of public health.

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Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/is-bps-macondo-reservoir-leaking-more-oil-2011-11-06

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2010/08/new-estimate-puts-oil-leak-at-49-million-barrels.html

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40932419/ns/us_news-environment/

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/BUSINESS/07/26/bp.profits.dudley/index.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/18/halliburtons-profit-jumps_n_901346.html

http://money.msn.com/top-stocks/post.aspx?post=b6479fda-acc7-47d5-a0db-545031a3238e

http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/health/mmume/cetacean_gulfofmexico2010.htm#map

http://www.sunherald.com/2011/02/21/2881674/spike-reported-in-number-of-stillborn.html

http://www.gulfcoastclaimsfacility.com/BP_7_7_11_Supplemental_Comment.pdf

http://www.wwltv.com/news/BP-wants-to-end-payments-for-future-losses-Fisherman-react-125252384.html

http://www.waltonsun.com/news/doctor-5716-spill-soto.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jerry-cope/nasa-data-toxic-rain_b_830481.html

http://peoplesworld.org/oil-cleanup-workers-fight-back-against-bp/

http://unsustainablespecies.blogspot.com/2010/06/bp-does-not-allow-cleanup-crews-on.html

http://www2.wkrg.com/special_section/2011/jul/12/mississippi-ag-sues-kenneth-feinberg-ar-2246869/

http://www.ksdk.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=267872