How the 2010 BP oil spill was worse than we thought
It has been three years since the Deepwater Horizon well exploded 50 miles off the coast of Louisiana. Eleven men lost their lives that day. On April 22, the rig sank into the Gulf of Mexico, triggering 87 days of uncontrolled oil discharges to the Gulf. From April 20 to July 18, it is estimated that 250 million gallons of oil were released into the environment
Without a doubt, it was the worst oil spill in history. The oil is not gone while offshore drilling continues in the Gulf of Mexico.
But you don't hear much about the spill anymore even as BP is on trial right now for billions in penalties.
Mark Hertsgaard has written a terryifing piece at The Daily Beast on our "collective amnesia" and the ensuing cover up by BP after the spill. Here is an excerpt from the opening:
"It’s as safe as Dawn dishwashing liquid.” That’s what Jamie Griffin says the BP man told her about the smelly, rainbow-streaked gunk coating the floor of the “floating hotel” where Griffin was feeding hundreds of cleanup workers during the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Apparently, the workers were tracking the gunk inside on their boots. Griffin, as chief cook and maid, was trying to clean it. But even boiling water didn’t work.
“The BP representative said, ‘Jamie, just mop it like you’d mop any other dirty floor,’” Griffin recalls in her Louisiana drawl.
It was the opening weeks of what everyone, echoing President Barack Obama, was calling “the worst environmental disaster in American history.” At 9:45 p.m. local time on April 20, 2010, a fiery explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig had killed 11 workers and injured 17. One mile underwater, the Macondo well had blown apart, unleashing a gusher of oil into the gulf. At risk were fishing areas that supplied one third of the seafood consumed in the U.S., beaches from Texas to Florida that drew billions of dollars’ worth of tourism to local economies, and Obama’s chances of reelection. Republicans were blaming him for mishandling the disaster, his poll numbers were falling, even his 11-year-old daughter was demanding, “Daddy, did you plug the hole yet?”
Griffin did as she was told: “I tried Pine-Sol, bleach, I even tried Dawn on those floors.” As she scrubbed, the mix of cleanser and gunk occasionally splashed onto her arms and face.
Within days, the 32-year-old single mother was coughing up blood and suffering constant headaches. She lost her voice. “My throat felt like I’d swallowed razor blades,” she says.
Then things got much worse.
Read the full story HERE.
