April 20th, 2011 
One year ago today, the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded, killing 11 workers and causing oil to gush into the Gulf of Mexico for three months. Nearly 5 million barrels of oil were spilled, making the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe the biggest spill in world history.
The web is filled with resources telling stories and giving information about this ongoing disaster – here’s a few. [Updated 21 Apr 9:30 AM PST]
- NOAA chief Dr Jane Lubchenco answers questions in the Orlando Sentinel
- Excellent interactive graphic from the New Orleans Times-Picayune
- CNN: Stories from the Gulf, one year on
- The Atlantic interviews Carl Safina about his new book on the disaster, A Sea in Flames
- Carl Safina also has an article in PLoS Biology (via Jingels in comments)
- Grist Magazine gives you 10 reasons to still be pissed off
- NOAA Gulf Oil Spill Education page has a huge amount of information
- Scientific American has a whole slew of excellent coverage (via BoraZ & Allie). Some highlights:
- Allie Wilkinson on whether dispersed oil is a threat to seafood
- How much damage did the oil spill do?
- How did the oil spill affect Gulf Coast wildlife?
Have you read a particularly insightful or moving story? A source of excellent information? Post the link below.
very interesting links, insightful info, thanks. Not wanting to downscale this environmental and socioeconomic drama of which the effects are long term and on a huge scale, I do think the title of largest oil disaster in world’s history goes to Nigeria (spills since the 1950s) and still ongoing (estimates up to 100m barrels! cf. Wiki)… mind-boggling
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/30/oil-spills-nigeria-niger-delta-shell
Jingels,
I wrote about that last summer. http://deepseanews.com/2010/06/putting-oilmageddon-2010-in-context/
I agree, enormous disaster but we’ve turned a blind eye to an even bigger tragedy. The human toll in Nigeria is astonishing and we no virtually nothing about the marine biodiversity (coastal or deep shelf) save for some recent work at methane seeps there.
out today in Plos Biology: The 2010 Gulf of Mexico Oil Well Blowout: A Little Hindsight by C. Safina
http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1001049?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+plosbiology%2FNewArticles+%28Ambra+-+Biology+New+Articles%29
Thanks Jingels. I have added the PLoS link above. I think your point about the Nigerian spill is excellent – I read that article when it came out – but I did not add it since this post focuses on the BP spill. Do you know if there’s any more recent information on the Nigeria spill? We can do a separate followup post.
Hi Miriam, have tried several times to post a reply w/o success. Did it not come through, or was its content not usable for a Nigerian spill post? contained references to news articles, mainly. Best wishes, Jingels
Hi Jingels, I take care of most of the back-end stuff here at DSN. I surfed through the spam filter (which I do empty every day or two, we get thousands!) to make sure but can’t see any comments you have made other than the 3 here and 1 on another post. New commenters are held in moderation until approved (to make sure you’re a real human). Once a comment is approved from your IP, you should be able to comment freely thereafter. I apologize if we lost any of your comments!
Thanks Kevin. Will try again.
Kevin Z, thanks! Had missed that post. True, vast human and environmental toll and absolutely no clue as to what the marine effects may be. Have been looking to get the book “Curse of the black gold”: http://www.curseoftheblackgoldbook.com/ to get more of a historical insight. Interesting article:http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cbdv.200900203/abstract;jsessionid=7C7448138ECD32A452AE1E8001C01A78.d02t01
Myriam G. I have posted some links below, recent news articles and insights. Perhaps you could repost them according to your suggestion?
It seems like a very complex problem in Nigeria, most likely institutionalised to such a degree that nobody wants to act to solve the problem. Oil companies may blame saboteurs (and call them terrorists) for most of the oil spills or the lack of control and safety measures by the government, but I can’t help feeling that these sabotage actions may be the result of hatred towards profiting oil companies and self-enriching Nigerian officials that fail to redistribute profits from their home land back into the community. Sadly, to the detriment of the land they live on, but also their livelihoods and health. Recently, international action has been taken against Shell (the main operator) in the Niger delta, without much success so far, but the pressure is on to put a name on the culprits of this huge disaster. Shell appeals a 100m $ fine (seems like a measly compensation for all the harm caused) by the Nigerian government, saying it will incentivise more sabotage. That just seems like weaselling out to me, if the money is spent through the right channels to benefit the population suffering from the environmental demise in such ways that their livelihoods and health is given back to them, then this could mitigate sabotage actions, surely.
What is clear is that, despite already 50 yrs of spillage, there is a substantial increase in news coverage on the Niger Delta oils pills since the Deepwater Horizon disaster occurred. To put it bluntly, many Nigerians are probable happy that another major spill has put their problems on the international agenda.
Almost sardonically there are a large amount of oil jobs in Nigeria, amongst others they’re looking for Oil Spill Preparedness and Response Coordinators. Hm…ring a bell, ….a bit late…
Below some links
Interesting interviews, showing some images of the detrimental effects on the delta environment
http://boingboing.net/2010/06/14/more-oil-spilled-in.html
Fishing communities left deprived
http://www.vanguardngr.com/2011/02/ibom-fishermen-pray-for-oil-spill-free-2011/
Insightful article
http://www.foreignpolicydigest.org/2011/03/01/nigeria-oil-spills-natural-gas-flares-and-bunkering/
Latest mentioning of oil spill in Nigeria (15 April 2011) http://radionigeriaibadan.com/index.php/news-item-3/581-ijegun-residents-cry-out-over-oil-spill.html
History of the oils pills and its consequences
http://www.curseoftheblackgoldbook.com/
Shell before the international court in Den Haag reverts from paying claims because of fear to instigate more sabotage http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/8284806/Nigeria-oil-spill-payouts-would-encourage-terrorism-Shell-claims.html
and interesting article:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/01/25/amnesty-slams-shell-oil-spills-nigeria/