It was supposed to be the worst environmental disaster of a generation. Pristine beaches along the Gulf of Mexico were going to be destroyed, and financial ruin would sweep across the coastal South from Texas to Florida.
Yet the worst didn’t happen. Short-term tragedy did not turn into long-term devastation.
The 2010 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil well in the Gulf of Mexico south of Louisiana claimed the lives of 11 oil-rig workers and sent about 4 million barrels of oil gushing into the water for 87 days.
“It’s not as bad as the government is trying to make it, and it’s not as good as BP is trying to make it,” said Christopher D’Elia.
Five years later, the environmental doomsday scenarios of blackened coastlines and dead fishing industries have not played out, and the Gulf of Mexico largely has rebounded from what appeared to be certain destruction.
Now the U.S. government and attorneys for BP plc, formerly British Petroleum, are at odds about the extent of the damages and are arguing over fines based on the environmental impact. BP is waiting for a federal judge in New Orleans to decide how much it will pay the federal government in fines under the Clean Water Act. Some experts have estimated the fines could climb to $13.7 billion, a record under the federal environmental law.
Help centers set up to assist business owners and residents file damage claims as part of BP’s multibillion-dollar settlement closed June 19, and now claims administrators are reviewing the more than 320,000 claims filed.
“It’s not as bad as the government is trying to make it, and it’s not as good as BP is trying to make it,” said Christopher D’Elia, a professor at Louisiana State University and dean of the School of the Coast and Environment. “It’s a litigation and so everyone is trying to make their case and that’s a good thing. For whatever reason, we handle environmental disasters with litigation and so all this plays out. Other nations are simpler and so maybe they’re faster.”
D’Elia publicly lobbied for independent scientists to have access to affected areas during the crisis after the federal government blocked them from conducting research.
He said some effects do linger. For instance, in the wake of several rounds of well-publicized dolphin die-offs, D’Elia said the evidence that the spill helped cause many of those deaths is “strong.” He also said the expected broad-scale environmental damages have not materialized.
“It was not as bad as some people thought. The environment is subtle. We’re still seeing the effects of the Exxon Valdez some 25 years later, so you never know what could come about,” he said.
D’Elia also points out there are vast differences between the BP oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico and the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska.
The Deepwater Horizon well was located nearly 50 miles south of the Louisiana coastline and nearly 5,000 feet below the surface of the water.
“The Exxon Valdez was in shallow water and close to shore,” D’Elia said. “That was a two-dimensional situation, whereas the BP spill was a three-dimensional situation.”
He also points out the type of oil leaked in the two separate instances is different. The oil from the Deepwater Horizon well was known as “Louisiana Sweet,” a lighter crude and less toxic than other oil. “Sweet” oil has chemicals that are more readily evaporated or eaten by micro-organisms, so the effects of the BP leak were not as readily visible as other spills in the past.
A study published in Environmental Science & Technology in 2012 reached the same conclusion, stating that microorganisms play significant roles in mitigating the damage from the oil leak.
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D’Elia said the wildly differing claims between the U.S. government, environmental activist and BP are part of the litigation process.
As the U.S. government and BP move forward in its fight over fines for the damage, the information gleaned from the BP leak is being used for the future of offshore drilling.
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