If this blog could be said to have a theme this summer, it would be this: The Gulf of Mexico, under stress. The tragedy, of course, is how much of that stress has been caused by BP’s recklessness — the millions of barrels of oil that gushed forth from its destroyed Deepwater Horizon rig in 2010 that continues to pollute white sandy beaches with tar balls (many of them larded with...
Note: As promised, Part II of my in-depth report on the state of the Gulf. more than four years after the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe: When the full extent of the Deepwater Horizon spill became clear in the spring of 2010, experts predicted the impact on the Gulf’s diverse ecosystem would last at least for a generation, if not longer. Unfortunately, they were working off a known template: The...
A constant theme since I started this blog nearly four years ago has been the impact of the BP oil spill on the marine life in Gulf of Mexico. One reason for that is that it seemed like the federal authorities were happy to do the bidding of BP and tell the public that everything was nearly back to normal in a matter of weeks; even President Obama made a big show of coming to the Gulf Coast and...
It’s not much of a Valentine’s Day for much of America, snowed in by yet another massive winter storm. But here in the Gulf, one of the few parts of the nation that’s snow-free, we’re dealing with a different kind of heartache these days: A flurry of scientific reports documenting the very real, and very traumatic, impacts from the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe and spill...
It won’t be long before the world marks the 4th anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe in the Gulf, and the worst oil spill in American history. The story has never really left the news, and understandably so. That’s in part because the effort to make BP fully accountable for its sins — both in the civil and the criminal courts — has been a long and arduous...
There’s still a week left in 2013, but it’s pretty clear that America is going to start the new year pretty much the same way that that current one began: Hopelessly addicted to fossil fuels. This week I saw a story in the news that pretty much sums up where this nation is at, as we prepare to celebrate the holidays. While there has certainly been some good news this year on the...
Sometimes you have to wonder whether the left hand knows what the right hand is doing. That’s definitely the case with BP and its horrific environmental track record here in the Gulf. On one hand, environmental officials continue to tally the damage from the massive BP oil spill that took place more than three and a half years ago, and today even officials who once downplayed the effects of...
More than three years out, the pace of independent scientific research into the aftermath of the BP oil spill is increasing. These new reports are exactly the kind of outside analysis that both the oil giant and the federal government worked so hard to discourage in the months immediately after the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe in April 2010. As many feared, scientists are gathering new evidence...
If you’re a regular reader of the blog, it will come as no surprise to you that the ecological health of the Gulf of Mexico in the aftermath of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill is considerally worse than depicted in much of the mainstream media — let alone by the tens of millions on dollars of bogus PR spin that BP has purchased on your television screen. Over the last 36 months...
