Deepwater Horizon’s effects still being tallied 5 years after the spill

A new report from the non-profit National Wildlife Federation contains disturbing details about the purported effects of the oil spill related to the Deepwater Horizon disaster, which occurred five years ago this month.

Officials at BP, the company that takes official responsibility for the incident, question the report’s fairness and have branded it “political advocacy” rather than science.

A federally-prescribed process still on-going will provide the final word on how the Gulf and its resources were ultimately affected by the spill. Meanwhile the NWF and other advocacy groups stand by their contention that the connection between the ill-fated Macondo well’s 87-day gusher and cited damage to wildlife is more than mere coincidence.

“Five years later, wildlife in the Gulf are still feeling the impacts of the oil spill,” said Collin O’Mara, the NWF’s president and CEO. “The science is clear that this is not over—and sea turtles, dolphins, fish, and birds are still suffering from the fallout. Holding BP fully accountable and using all fines and penalties to restore the Gulf of Mexico must be a national priority.”

Among the findings presented during a tele-conference last week were claims of damaged and distressed wildlife:

• In 2014, dolphins on the Louisiana coast were found dead at four times the numbers previously recorded.

• Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle nests have declined since 2010, following steady increases.

• Abnormal development has been logged in many fish species, including mahi-mahi, killifish and both Bluefin and yellowfin tuna.

• Modeling estimates indicate that 12 percent of brown pelicans and 32 percent of laughing gulls in the northern Gulf died as a result of the spill.

• Oil and dispersant compounds have been found in the eggs of white pelicans nesting in Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois.

• Spotted seatrout, also known as speckled trout, spawned less frequently in 2011 in both Louisiana and Mississippi than in previous years.

• 2010 and 2011 had the lowest numbers of juvenile red snapper seen in the eastern Gulf fishery since 1994.

• Coral colonies are showing signs of oil damage.

BP officials say they have not wavered from a commitment to Gulf restoration, pointing to what they maintain is an “unprecedented, voluntary commitment of $1 billion to early restoration of injured resources.”

That pledge – separate from what might later be mandated in connection with clean water act violations and other sanctions, has paid for 54 restoration projects, costing approximately $700 million, while the damage assessment continues.

Geoff Morrell, BP Senior Vice President for US Communications & External Affairs, cautioned against using data from reports such as that issued by the NWF to substitute for the peer-reviewed information that will formally be incorporated into the NRDA.

“The National Wildlife Federation report is a work of political advocacy by an organization that has referred to the Deepwater Horizon accident as ‘an historic opportunity’ to finance its policy agenda,” Morrell said in a statement, after BP was asked for a response to the NWF report. “NWF is not a Natural Resource Damage Assessment trustee and not party to the NRDA studies undertaken to determine potential injury to natural resources that resulted from the accident. The NWF report conveniently overlooks five years’ worth of government data and information from third-party scientific papers that show that damages were limited and the Gulf is undergoing a strong recovery. The dire predictions made in 2010 have fortunately not come to pass – in large part because of the Gulf’s resilience, natural processes and the effectiveness of response and clean-up efforts mounted by BP under the direction of the federal government … BP is committed to restoring all natural resources that credible science shows were harmed by the spill. To that end, we have already spent $1.3 billion to fund the Deepwater Horizon NRDA, the largest-ever assessment of potential injury to natural resources.”

A federal judge will soon decide the case against BP and the other companies involved with the spill for violations of the Clean Water Act.

A law passed in 2012, the RESTORE Act will send this money back to the five Gulf states. A prior NWF report released last year includes descriptions of 47 projects the organization favors for restoring wetlands and re-creating “a more natural balance” between fresh and salt water.

“It is essential that the money from these penalties be invested in scientifically-sound restoration projects, like those planned for the Mississippi River Delta and the Everglades,” said David Muth, the director of Gulf restoration for the National Wildlife Federation. “It is our responsibility to future generations to make restoration on a transformative scale a reality.”

NWF’s director for Gulf restoration, David Muth, has renewed the call for Clean Water Act money to be invested in projects such as those the organization favors, noting “it is our responsibility to future generations to make restoration on a transformative scale a reality.”

During a teleconference last week Muth reported on recent observations in the Bay Jimmy area of Barataria Bay, including the decimation of mangroves and other vegetation on an island once favored for nesting by pelicans and other marine avian species.

He also described recently seeing a dolphin apparently trying to resuscitate an imperiled calf, as other members of their pod encircled them.

There was no way, he acknowledged, to connect the calf’s struggle to the Deepwater Horizon incident, although some of the data NWF has referred to indicates increased problems for dolphins after the spill. Toward that end, he said, communicating the encounter was properly relevant.

Muth also touched on a point that may be an elephant in the environmental room concerning how the spill is being assessed as regards the natural world.

The NRDA process, he noted, was designed as an effective means to assess culpability. But he acknowledged that in a case like the Deepwater Horizon disaster the process of necessity becomes lengthy and allows for an extended period of opaqueness rather than transparency.

That keeps the best science veiled from public view for years, he said.

Michael Orr, spokesmn for the Louisiana Environmental Action Network, which has advocated on behalf of fishermen and other Gulf coast residents in the wake of the spill, agrees that the NRDA process is clumsy. But the slow pace, he acknowledged, is almost unavoidable.

“I think it would be tricky,” he said, when asked about alternatives. “The nature of science and academia is slow but there are always more questions than answers. We have been involved with studies and we are trying to put out our own information, but we are clear about the limitations – even when you have data.”

The process, in Orr’s opinion, becomes flawed because it appears science is trying to disprove corporate and even government suggestions that all is well in the Gulf despite the spill, rather than appearing as clear and objective as it could.

“The bigger issue to me is it feels like you are in a culture of trying to disprove the rhetoric as opposed to seeing what is the truth,” Orr said. “It is almost like the research is trying to dispel the ‘all clear’ that was immediately sounded.”

A dead bird lies on the barren landscape of Cat Island near Barataria Bay during a National Wildlife Federation boat tour last year. Once a thriving rookery, the bird population left after mangroves were destroyed by the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster

FILE PHOTO