Disaster in the Gulf
The Gulf Coast oil spill devastated the environment and economy from Louisiana to Florida. OnEarth's staff and correspondents followed this catastrophic event in words, photos, and video.
April 26, 2013:
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February 15, 2013:
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February 8, 2013:
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October 11, 2012:
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September 7, 2012:
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June 29, 2012:
Want to get Today OnEarth in your inbox? We’ve added a new signup box to the right. Just enter your email address, and every weekday morning at 11 a.m. Eastern, we’ll deliver our survey of the day’s top environmental news.... read more >
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April 20, 2012:
Fines don’t matter: In an op-ed also published in the New York Times, investigative reporter Abrahm Lustgarten reflects on the two-year anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon disaster and the lack of any real consequences for... read more >
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March 22, 2012:
Safer strawberries: Remeber methyl iodide? The potent pesticide set off a fierce debate when the EPA approved its use back in 2007. Well, good news: its manufacturer has stopped U.S. sales. The reason? No one was buying it. ... read more >
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February 23, 2012:
Not safe for consumption: Two-headed trout are causing quite a stir in Idaho. Selenium contamination from a heavy metals mine has spawned mutated fish. Despite decades of evidence pointing to selenium’s effects on wildlife,... read more >
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February 10, 2012:
Safety slowdown: In 2010, the Environmental Protection Agency sent the White House a list of widely used chemicals it wanted to flag as “chemicals of concern” because they may cause human health risks. (Industry, of course,... read more >
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February 7, 2012:
Running out: A special report published today looks at the inevitable resource crunch as the rapidly growing global middle class starts demanding Western levels of consumption. Call it "Peak Everything" as supplies of goods... read more >
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January 24, 2012:
State of the Union: President Obama is going to put energy front and center in his big speech tonight, setting the tone for an election year when energy issues are expected to be critical. Anyone want to bet on whether the... read more >
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December 21, 2011:
I’ve done some environmental equivocating in my most recent posts. Not this week. This week I’m pissed off. Why? Because I continue to be astounded by the lack of coverage of the consequences of the BP oil spill. Let me be... read more >
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November 11, 2011:
Like any sane person, I am fond of dolphins. For the last seven years or so, since I moved south, we have been on neighborly terms. I remember my first New Year’s Day in the South, eight years ago, when I kayaked over to... read more >
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November 8, 2011:
David Gessner is one of our favorite authors (which is why he's also an OnEarth contributing editor, essayist, blogger, video maker, and whatever else we can squeeze out of him). He's taken two pieces of his OnEarth... read more >
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October 19, 2011:
I’ve been down to the Gulf of Mexico three times during the last year and a half, and on my second visit, almost exactly a year ago, I went out to Alabama’s Dauphin Island and made this short film. A few months before,... read more >
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October 10, 2011:
Lately I’ve been giving a lot of talks and radio interviews, and I’ve noticed a particular slant to some of the questions I’ve been getting. Because I write about nature, and because I have recently written about the BP oil... read more >
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October 4, 2011:
“Why does that guy keep writing about the BP oil spill?” you may rightfully ask. Well, part of it is certainly the fact that I just had a book come out about the subject, and am therefore required by law to keep on topic.... read more >
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September 28, 2011:
Last Thursday, I took a walk along the Gulf of Mexico in the Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge in Alabama. I had walked that same beach during the height of the BP oil spill last summer, and though seventeen months had... read more >
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April 22, 2011:
In the wake of the Deepwater Horizon blowout last year, BP repeatedly misled the public about how much oil was spewing into the Gulf of Mexico. Now, as we mark the one-year anniversary of the blowout, company executives... read more >
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April 18, 2011:
A year after the worst oil spill in U.S. history, dozens of dead baby dolphins are washing ashore in the Gulf of Mexico; oyster populations are devastated, crippling a multi-billion dollar industry and the tens of thousands... read more >
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December 10, 2010:
Last month I wrote about the two-inch layer of “slime snot” that scientists found on the floor of the Gulf of Mexico 16 miles from the site of the Deepwater Horizon blowout. I learned about this discovery from Vernon Asper,... read more >
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October 19, 2010:
Speaking before hundreds of environmental journalists last week in Montana in advance of tomorrow's six-month anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, the Obama administration's oceans chief said federal agencies need... read more >
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September 27, 2010:
We bear witness so we might tell stories. Since I have joined NRDC, my own story is growing, but this one is all of ours to write.Last week I took a trip with NRDC executive director Peter Lehner, other staffers, and another... read more >
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September 23, 2010:
You've probably read some of the stories about BP and the feds trying to stop reporters from digging into the Gulf Coast oil spill. Now it seems they're taking it literally.A Florida reporter looking for oil and tar balls in... read more >
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September 16, 2010:
Because she's best known for her melodic, tuneful songs, songwriter Gale Mead knows that her new music video might upset her fans. In fact, she's counting on it."I wanted the video to be as shocking as possible," she says,... read more >
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August 26, 2010:
To give credit where credit is due, as we discussed the “BP massacre” one recent night, my husband reminded me, Rebecca, the amateur historian and fierce political blogger, who should have this fact on the tip-of-her-... read more >
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August 19, 2010:
A few weeks ago, I flew over the Deepwater Horizon site and saw what looked like the opposite of all the news reports: it looked more like somebody had spilled water into a Gulf filled with oil.You don't have to make a... read more >
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August 17, 2010:
"War is over," sang John Lennon in different times."Oil is over," sang The New York Times a week ago Wednesday, heralding those two terrifically reliable sources, NOAA and BP, and letting us know that all was hunky dory... read more >
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August 14, 2010:
All of the frustration, sadness, anger and suffering that Gulf citizens are now enduring, whittled down to mere geometry. A graphic that should have emblematized the facts, that should have indexed reality, seemed instead... read more >
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August 3, 2010:
I knew pelicans before they were famous. I started studying them when I first moved to the South, seven years ago now, and after a couple of years here I wrote an essay about the birds, and about my daughter and learning to... read more >
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July 30, 2010:
At Table Three, the Louisiana Spirit Coastal Recovery Counseling Program is handing out blue rubber "stress balls," though I don’t see a lot of fishermen squeezing the little toys. I take one anyway, occasionally tossing it... read more >
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July 27, 2010:
These days I take a walk by the Mississippi up along the levee almost every evening. I have the luxury the local fishermen and oilmen do not, the luxury of letting my mind take a break from the oil. As I stroll, I think... read more >
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July 26, 2010:
Even though the Deepwater Horizon well has been capped and the relief wells are almost finished, the BP oil disaster is far from over. It will take decades to recover from this catastrophe. I don't think people fully... read more >
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July 23, 2010:
A couple of summers ago I paid a visit to Kerry Emanuel, a professor of meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who was one of the country’s leading authorities on the recent intensification of storms. If... read more >
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July 20, 2010:
I am now in the green, beautiful, and paranoid heart of southeastern Louisiana, a sinking land less than fifty miles from the Deepwater site. Things happen fast in this strange world. Take yesterday for instance. At dawn... read more >
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July 19, 2010:
I have always loved the oceans. My father was a Navy man and one requirement he had for us growing up was that we had to live near a body of saltwater. I was raised listening to foghorns by night and being chased by... read more >
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July 16, 2010:
No one is popping champagne down here quite yet. Pardon the locals if they have become a little dubious about ingenuity, American and otherwise. The more realistic attitude is less "hoo-ray" than "we’ll see."I’m in Mobile... read more >
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July 14, 2010:
Before I say goodbye to camping at the national seashore, I need to mention something that a new friend pointed out yesterday. The park where I was staying used to be a fort, and remnants of that fort still stand, as well as... read more >
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July 13, 2010:
Yesterday I spent the morning wading through the marsh of Grand Bay, Alabama, with a delightful and knowledgeable naturalist named Bill Finch. Deep in the marsh, in the salt pan, we saw puddles of oil nearly the same blue... read more >
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July 8, 2010:
The guy from Texas is taking the giant tarball that the guy from Pensacola wants. The guy from Pensacola, a good guy named James who I met about an hour ago, thinks he should collect the tarball, which is the biggest one he... read more >
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July 8, 2010:
Two decades ago, New York City's Society of Illustrators mounted an exhibition that brought together art and environmentalism. So much has happened since the debut of Earth for Survival: The Illustrator and the Environment... read more >
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July 7, 2010:
I visited to New Orleans last week. While there, I took a trip out to the swamp and marshlands, something I've done several times over the past year, but this time I got to speak to residents about the Gulf oil disaster. My... read more >
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July 7, 2010:
They don’t look like balls exactly. The small ones look like dried-out rabbit turds or kernels of a not particularly appetizing breakfast cereal. The larger ones are maps of rust-brown countries. They could be jigsaw... read more >
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June 29, 2010:
Brown pelicans on the Gulf Coast are threatened as oil from the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster invades their habitat and nesting grounds. But at the Fort Jackson Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in Buras, Louisiana, pelicans... read more >
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UPDATE -- TEDxOilSpill: DC Confab Gathers Innovators, Experts to Find Solutions to Gulf Oil Disaster
June 28, 2010:
A view of the room at TEDxOilSpill. Image courtesy kk+/flickr [I'll be adding updates to this post during the day. Scroll down the page a bit to see the latest. -- EJG] Today's TedxOilSpill conference in Washington, D.... read more >
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June 24, 2010:
When marine toxicologist Susan Shaw set out to investigate the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, she didn't do it from behind a desk. Late in May, a few miles offshore of Louisiana's Pass a Loutre marshlands, Shaw donned a... read more >
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June 21, 2010:
In 2002, ocean explorer Gale Mead was the first person to see and film the profusion of life 200 feet down on Salt Dome Seamount -- just 16 miles from where the BP oil well is now gushing out of control. Mead (daughter of... read more >
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June 17, 2010:
The damage inflicted by the BP oil spill on the natural environment in the Gulf Coast region is plainly visible, but what's not as apparent is the potential damage the spill poses to human health. Community members are... read more >
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June 11, 2010:
Like most Americans, I am horrified by the unending catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico.Even with the latest containment cap in place, oil is likely to hemorrhage from BP's ruptured well until August or beyond.As I try to... read more >
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June 11, 2010:
As an ecologist, a lot of people have been asking me for my perspective on the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The short answer is that I am depressed and uncertain. And I am not alone -- biologists I have talked to feel... read more >
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June 11, 2010:
Editor's note: NRDC is asking its supporters to help victims of the BP oil spill by donating to the Gulf Coast Fund. In this guest post for OnEarth, Penny Fujiko Willgerodt, advisor to the Gulf Coast Fund, explains why it'... read more >
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June 9, 2010:
Last week, we brought you some of the most ridiculous comments from BP CEO Tony Hayward on the disaster in the Gulf. Now NRDC Films has turned those comments into this video "tribute." Follow OnEarth's continuing... read more >
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June 7, 2010:
New Orleans is known all over the world for its famous seafood, but the Gulf Coast oil spill has left the future of the industry in jeopardy. Chefs, suppliers, and consumers are worried about how the ongoing disaster will... read more >
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June 4, 2010:
In his ongoing blog, photographer and environmental activist J Henry Fair, a frequent contributor to OnEarth Magazine, is sharing stories about his work and thoughts on current environmental affairs. You can... read more >
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June 4, 2010:
I have tried to avoid nostalgia as hard as I am driven towards it. With all the sentiments of our youth so readily available on I tunes and YouTube and other places so easily acquired by the click of a mouse or a bat of... read more >
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June 3, 2010:
In his ongoing blog, photographer and environmental activist J Henry Fair, a frequent contributor to OnEarth Magazine, is sharing stories about his work and thoughts on current environmental affairs. You can follow... read more >
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June 2, 2010:
I love the Louisiana Gulf Coast. So, tears streamed down my face as I listened to the President talk Friday afternoon about the devastation he'd seen. For over a decade, my husband and I have made an annual pilgrimage to... read more >
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June 2, 2010:
Is BP CEO Tony Hayward cracking under the pressure? Photo illustration by Lance Page/truthout and Lulu-belle Ramsbottom/World Economic Forum via Creative CommonsBP CEO Tony Hayward apologized on Facebook for a "hurtful... read more >
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June 2, 2010:
In his ongoing blog, photographer and environmental activist J Henry Fair, a frequent contributor to OnEarth Magazine, is sharing stories about his work and thoughts on current environmental affairs. You can follow along... read more >
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June 1, 2010:
The Philippe family has called Louisiana's Grand Bayou home for "centuries upon centuries." As part of the Native American Atakapa-Ishak tribe, the family has relied on the land and water around it to survive for... read more >
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May 27, 2010:
With the official start of Atlantic hurricane season less than a week away, forecasters anticipate a year of powerful storms akin to 2005, when Hurricanes Katrina and Rita battered the Gulf Coast. Both of those storms... read more >
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May 26, 2010:
The Gulf of Mexico oil disaster's visible effects on wildlife have increased sharply in the past week, as wind and current conditions push the surface oil slick closer to the coastline. Heavy bands of oil have penetrated... read more >
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May 24, 2010:
Captain Damon McKnight knows a little about fishing. He sits on the Louisiana recreational seat of the NMFS Gulf Council, and he’s been chief guide of Super Strike Charters for the last fifteen years. As he squints... read more >
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May 19, 2010:
Photo credit: The Institute for Marine Remote Sensing (IMaRS at USF). WHERE'S THE OIL NOW? A month after the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform explosion, a heavy blanket of crude oil has hit the Louisiana wetlands, and the... read more >
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May 19, 2010:
Thursday, May 20, 2010, marks one month since BP's oil rig exploded off the Gulf Coast, killing 11 people and unleashing one of the worst environmental disasters our nation has ever seen. Since then, millions of... read more >
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May 18, 2010:
On the May 17 edition of GritTV, I joined fellow guest Kieran Suckling of the Center for Biological Diversity to talk about the politics of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico with host Laura Flanders. The segment kicked... read more >
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May 13, 2010:
An oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana has spread to cover a lot more than 1,800 square miles as of Monday afternoon. The oil spill is coming from a leak within the well that was drilled by the... read more >
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May 13, 2010:
Oil (dark) and natural gas (light) stream from the leaking Deepwater Horizon well on May 11, 2010, at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. This video is from the larger of two existing leaks, located at a depth of about 5,000... read more >
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May 11, 2010:
Google Earth has created a handy/scary tool that lets you get a better picture of the size of the Gulf oil spill by superimposing an image of it on whatever geography you wish. In my case, that's the Great Lakes, where I've... read more >
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May 7, 2010:
The Gulf of Mexico, which supplies as much as a third of America's domestically caught seafood, is at risk of becoming a giant "no fishing" zone after the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform disaster. Eminent... read more >
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May 6, 2010:
Right now, the northern Gulf Coast from Louisiana to the Florida panhandle is bracing for more oil from the BP disaster. But powerful, hidden flows of water beneath the Gulf's surface mean other parts of the country... read more >
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May 5, 2010:
Even before the BP oil spill, sea turtles were dying in the Gulf of Mexico in numbers that some term "appalingly high" because of another human activity: shrimp trawling.The Associated Press reported today that the... read more >
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May 3, 2010:
Federal officials acknowledged over the weekend that initial estimates of the size of the Gulf Coast oil spill were likely too small after a small nonprofit firm in West Viriginia called them into question. Late last week... read more >
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May 3, 2010:
By Abrahm Lustgarten The chemicals BP is now relying on to break up the steady flow of leaking oil from deep below the Gulf of Mexico could create a new set of environmental problems.Even if the materials, called... read more >
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April 29, 2010:
Close to 5,000 barrels of oil a day are pouring into the Gulf of Mexico following the destruction of an offshore oil platform last week, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. Operator BP originally argued that the amount was... read more >
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