The Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded on April 20, 2010, which makes today the 1,825 day of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. There are many questions yet to be answered about one of the largest environmental disasters in US history. This beautiful video tries to illustrate the disaster and answer some of the questions: Where Did The Oil Go?
Amazing to see that five years after the oil spill, BP is telling people not to worry about tar balls still being found on beaches and in the water:
Immediately after the spill evidence was visible of the tragedy as sea animals floated to the water surface and washed up on beaches covered and suffocated by the heavy oil. 48,000 workers tried to clean up the oil spill and now those workers are showing up with health issues including adverse respiratory aliments.
Nearly five years after the worst offshore spill in U.S. history, a new study by researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham suggests that an oil dispersant widely used during the cleanup of the BP disaster is capable of causing damage to humans and marine animals alike.In the study, published in PLOS ONE on April 2, scientists focused their attention on a dispersant called Corexit EC9500A.
Nearly two million gallons of Corexit were sprayed atop the oil spill to help break down the petroleum. But in their study, the UAB scientists found that the dispersant can seriously damage epithelial cells, such as those in the lungs of humans or the gills of marine animals.
“The evidence that Corexit causes structural and functional abnormalities in airway tissue includes dispersant-induced cell detachment, edema, contraction in cell diameter and increased permeability,” Prof. Veena Antony, M.D., the paper’s senior author, said in a UAB news release.
