5 years later, Gulf still waits for real recovery
Restoration of the national treasure will take time, renewed commitment from our nation’s leaders.
Five years ago this week, the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 men and rupturing a well on the ocean floor that sent as much as 200 million gallons of crude oil into Gulf waters.
It is no surprise that the image burned into many people’s memories from the 2010 Gulf spill was that of a brown pelican desperately flapping oil-soaked wings, struggling to emerge from the oily surf. In many ways, the Gulf of Mexico is defined by the sheer diversity and abundance of its wildlife. Its blue waters are home to dolphins, tuna, sperm whales and sea turtles; its coastal marshes support millions of migrating ducks and geese each winter; and its estuaries nurture massive fisheries that supply a good portion of the nation’s fish and shellfish. The fouling of these habitats, and of the hapless animals themselves, struck most Americans as a crime, not just against nature, but against innocence.
To hear BP tell it, though, everything is fine now in the Gulf. The company is spending millions on cheerful “mission-accomplished” television ads and glossy reports declaring the Gulf to be on the mend, with no “significant long-term impact … to any Gulf species.”
Dolphins, sea turtles taking a hit
The truth is, wildlife suffered tremendous damage from the biggest environmental disaster in U.S. history, and the science documenting that damage is still mounting. We know that bottlenose dolphins in the northern Gulf are dying at four times the normal rate, plagued by lung masses and adrenal problems, and that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has affirmatively linked that high mortality rate to the BP spill. The endangered Kemp’s ridley sea turtle has also taken a hit: After decades of steady increases, the number of sea turtle nests on Gulf beaches has flat-lined or declined in the five years since the spill. An estimated 800,000 birds died from exposure to BP’s oil.
Nor is the oil itself gone. Despite BP’s repeated assurances that handy oil-eating microbes have obligingly gobbled up all the oil, scientists have found oil in sediments deep in the Gulf in a 1,200-squaremile area surrounding the Macondo wellhead. And, in March, as BP issued its “all’s well” report, crews were simultaneously cleaning up a 25,000-pound tar mat found along the coast of Louisiana’s East Grand Terre Island.
There is no escaping the fact that it will take a long time and a lot of money to put things right in the Gulf. Fortunately, Congress took action in 2012 that could at least start the Gulf ’s journey back to health. The RESTORE Act, passed by a strong bipartisan majority, requires that 80 percent of the civil penalties BP will eventually owe for violating the Clean Water Act be invested in the Gulf. Depending on the outcome of a trial nearing completion, those fines could total as much as $13.7 billion.
But even if BP accepts its responsibilities and pays its fines (a big if, since the company has appealed two rulings thus far and has told the court a judgement greater than $2.3 billion would threaten its continued U.S. operations) restoration of the Gulf ecosystem is by no means guaranteed. Despite the congressional debate focusing almost exclusively on the need for ecological restoration, the RESTORE Act only mandates that a fraction of the fines go towards such purposes. Ensuring that the rest goes to restoration will require bold leadership.
No broad commitment is seen
There is no shortage of opportunity to invest in restoration. Coastal wetlands in Louisiana face rapid erosion, exacerbated by the spill; estuaries in Texas and Florida are starved for fresh water; the shorelines of Alabama’s Mobile Bay need shoring up and oyster reefs in Mississippi and across the Gulf are in decline.
But so far, we are not seeing a broad commitment to restoration. The RESTORE Act’s Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Council, chaired by the U.S. Department of Commerce, has not yet developed the truly Comprehensive Gulfwide Restoration Plan called for by the bill. The council has placed greater focus upon devising ways to slice up the pie than upon making the hard choices necessary to prioritize effective, comprehensive restoration. The Gulf states, counties and parishes, which have wide latitude in deciding how to spend their individual allotments of RESTORE dollars, have mostly not shared their priorities.
Our nation has an unprecedented opportunity to get restoration right for the Gulf, to invest in projects that restore vital ecological functions and provide habitat for fish, birds, wildlife and for the people who enjoy and derive their livelihoods from them. But it will take greater leadership, from the White House, and from the state capitols, to deliver what the Gulf ultimately needs.
This week, as America remembers the Gulf oil disaster, as we recall the oiled shorebirds, the dead dolphins, the outof-work fishermen, the empty beaches, we implore our leaders to reaffirm their commitment to restoring this world-class natural treasure.