Environment - Gulf Coast

An older nearshore wellhead is shown off the coast of California in this undated photo. In state waters, California has resealed scores of its abandoned wells since the 1980s, but in federal waters, the official policy is out-of-sight, out-of-mind. Neither industry nor government checks for leaks at the more than 27,000 oil and gas wells abandoned in the Gulf of Mexico since the late 1940s. Abandoned wells are known sometimes to fail both on land and offshore. It happens so often that a technical term has been coined for the repair job: "re-abandonment."  Photo: California State Lands Commission / The Associated Press

nola.com - Associated Press - July 7, 2010

More than 27,000 abandoned oil and gas wells lurk in the hard rock beneath the Gulf of Mexico, an environmental minefield that has been ignored for decades. No one -- not industry, not government -- is checking to see if they are leaking, an Associated Press investigation shows.

The oldest of these wells were abandoned in the late 1940s, raising the prospect that many deteriorating sealing jobs are already failing.

Image: The Deepwater Horizon rig explosion.

inhabitat.com - April 21th 2015 - Charley Cameron

As we mark the fifth anniversary of the explosion that rocked the Deepwater Horizon rig, claiming 11 lives and sparking a 87 day-long, 200-million-gallon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, studies continue to reveal the devastating impact of the oil—and dispersants used in clean up—on marine life. Recent reports show that the dispersants were more damaging to corals than the oil itself, and continue to diminish shellfish and sea turtle populations, while large questions loom over the ongoing unexplained deaths of dolphins along the Gulf Coast. And, as the NRDC points out, it will take years, if not decades longer to fully understand the effects of the disaster.

(VIEW COMPLETE ARTICLE)

Dr. Brian Stacy, NOAA veterinarian, prepares to clean an oiled Kemp's Ridley sea turtle found almost 40 miles from the site of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, June 14, 2010.
NOAA's National Ocean Service

CLICK HERE - RESEARCH - Using Natural Abundance Radiocarbon To Trace the Flux of Petrocarbon to the Seafloor Following the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

digitaljournal.com - by Karen Graham - January 31, 2015

While Gulf Coast residents are feeling pretty good about the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, thinking it's now less harmful than originally thought, scientists have found almost 10 million gallons of BP's oil, sitting on the bottom of the Gulf.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FB7IIN098IM

Pensacola, Florida - June 10, 2014

Objective: By April of 2015, the ALERT pilot study will conduct health evaluations and environmental baseline monitoring, and establish networks of informed health care providers, in two regions of the country at-risk from petrochemical exposure----Gulf Coast communities harmed by the 2010 BP DWH disaster and Keystone XL corridor communities. ALERT will test for evidence of chemical exposure and provide training for treatment for oil-chemical related illness in these exposed communities. An important component of the ALERT project will be focused on educating community leaders and the public on the risks and health effects of petrochemical exposure to work toward solutions for treatment of current illnesses and protect against future exposure events.