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Study shows continuing impacts of Deepwater Horizon oil spill

Nine years ago tomorrow—April 20, 2010—crude oil began leaking from the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig into the Gulf of Mexico in what turned out to be the largest marine oil spill in history. A long-term study suggests the oil is still affecting the salt marshes of the Gulf Coast, and reveals the key role that marsh grasses play in the overall recovery of these important coastal wetlands.

Conducting the study was a multi-institutional research team funded in part by the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative, a 10-year independent program established through a $500 million financial commitment from BP. The team began sampling soon after the spill was finally contained, and continue their work today. Their most-recent article—in Estuaries and Coasts—reports on the first six and a half years of sampling post-spill.

Lead author on the study is John Fleeger, an emeritus professor at LSU. Co-authors are Rita Riggio, Irving Mendelssohn, Qianxin Lin, and Aixin Hou of LSU; David Johnson of William & Mary's Virginia Institute of Marine Science; Donald Deis of Atkins North America; Kevin Carman of the University of Nevada-Reno; Sean Graham of Nicholls State University; and Scott Zengel of Research Planning, Inc.

Johnson, an assistant professor at VIMS and expert in salt marsh invertebrates, says "Our study highlights the crucial role that plants play in the recovery of important links in the Gulf of Mexico's coastal food web." Those links ultimately connect to the fish and shellfish that support the region's economy and culture.

Two plants dominate healthy Gulf Coast salt marshes—the smooth cordgrass Spartina alterniflora and the black needlerush Juncus roemerianus. Also abundant on the marsh surface are single-celled, plant-like organisms that scientists collectively refer to as benthic microalgae, while a suite of small invertebrates—amphipods, copepods, nematodes, snails, worms, and others—swim, hop, and crawl among the grass blades or burrow in the underlying root zone.

The team studied these organisms by measuring their abundance and biomass in heavily oiled, moderately oiled, and oil-free areas of Louisiana's Barataria Bay, using both surface plots and shallow cores. Sampling took place at roughly 6-month intervals between 2011 and 2016.


Much more: https://phys.org/news/2019-04-impacts-deepwater-horizon-oil.amp



Photos of a heavily oiled saltmarsh in Louisiana's Barataria Bay show recovery of the plant community following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Credit: Dr. Qianxin Lin.

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State rebuilt 5.1 square miles of coast with $500M in fines since BP Deepwater Horizon

Just four days before the ninth anniversary of the catastrophic BP Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill, state coastal officials outlined how they are using the disaster’s silver lining – billions of dollars in fines and other payments – to rebuild 5.1 square miles of the state’s eroding coastline.

About $510 million paid by BP and its partners for their roles involving BP’s failed Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico already has been used to complete restoration work on seven major projects, Greg Gandy, deputy executive director of the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, told authority board members on Wednesday (April 17). And another $6.8 billion will be used on dozens of other projects through 2032, the deadline for the companies to pay money owed under various court settlement agreements.

“Even though this is just a start, what we’ve done so far without any Louisiana taxpayers’ dollars is impressive, and there is much more to come,” Grandy told the board. “But let’s never forget why we’re getting this funding and why we need it. The loss of life suffered on that rig, and the oil that flowed into the Gulf for months was devastating to our people, our environment, our economy, our fisheries and wildlife. There is much to remedy, and we are working hard to do just that.”

The state receives money from a variety of funding streams stemming from legal action taken against BP and its partners after the accident:

Criminal penalties totaling $1.272 billion, overseen by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, must be used for either rebuilding barrier islands or the construction and design of major sediment diversions on the Mississippi River by the terms of the criminal settlements with BP and Transocean.


Much more: https://www.nola.com/environment/2019/04/state-rebuilt-51-square-miles-of-coast-with-500m-in-fines-since-bp-deepwater-horizon.html?outputType=amp



The wetland area in the photo was created as part of the Lake Hermitage Phase 2 marsh creation project in Plaquemines Parish, paid for with $14.2 million of Natural Resource Damage Assessment money from BP in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon accident and oil spill.