US - Gulf Coast

Deepwater Horizon disaster, 2010: BP's bill keeps rising. Photograph: Handout/Getty Images

Latest update on continuing costs of Macondo blowout comes as oil firm reports fall in quarterly and yearly profits

theguardian.com - by Terry Macalister - February 4, 2014

BP has been forced to set aside an extra $200m (£123m) for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, bringing the bill so far to $42.7bn.

The final figure could be far higher, however, as the latest tally does not take account of additional provisions for economic loss claims from a further legal settlement BP has made, the group said. BP is also waiting for a final US court decision over whether it was considered grossly negligent for the Deepwater Horizon accident.

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Less oxygen dissolved in the water is often referred to as a dead zone? (in red above) because most marine life either dies, or, if they are mobile such as fish, leave the area. / NOAA

marcoislandflorida.com - USA Today - by Dan Vergano - June 19, 2013

Environmental biologists foresee a record-size “dead zone” for the Gulf of Mexico this summer, a New Jersey-sized patch of water deadly to marine life, federal officials announced. 

Seen every year off the Texas and Louisiana coasts, the zone forms largely because of fertilizer runoff from the Corn Belt flowing down the Mississippi, where the nutrients spur the growth of the algal blooms that remove oxygen from the water in the Gulf. The especially large size this year of the predicted zone, perhaps 8,500 square miles, appears to be tied to Midwestern floods that washed more nutrients into the river.

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by Jay Reeves - Associated Press - September 20, 2011

Tar balls mix with seashells washed up near Pensacola Beach, Fla., on Sept. 14 - Melissa Nelson / AP

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — Tar balls washed onto Gulf of Mexico beaches by Tropical Storm Lee earlier this month show that oil left over from last year's BP spill isn't breaking down as quickly as some scientists thought it would, university researchers said Tuesday.

Auburn University experts who studied tar samples at the request of coastal leaders said the latest wave of gooey orbs and chunks appeared relatively fresh, smelled strongly and were hardly changed chemically from the weathered oil that collected on Gulf beaches during the spill.

The study concluded that mats of oil — not weathered tar, which is harder and contains fewer hydrocarbons — are still submerged on the seabed and could pose a long-term risk to coastal ecosystems.

Red snapper with abnormal stripes caught by a local commercial fisherman. Scientists are seeing a growing number of Gulf fish with lesions and other health problems and are conducting tests to determine whether they are related to the BP oil spill. / Special to the News Journal

Kimberly Blair - Pensacola News Journal - May 7, 2011

Scientists are alarmed by the discovery of unusual numbers of fish in the Gulf of Mexico and inland waterways with skin lesions, fin rot, spots, liver blood clots and other health problems.

"It's a huge red flag," said Richard Snyder, director of the University of West Florida Center for Environmental Diagnostics and Bioremediation. "It seems abnormal, and anything we see out of the ordinary we'll try to investigate."

Are the illnesses related to the BP oil spill, the cold winter or something else?

That's the big question Snyder's colleague, UWF biologist William Patterson III, and other scientists along the Gulf Coast are trying to answer. If the illnesses are related to the oil spill, it could be a warning sign of worse things to come.