Gulf of Mexico Health Remains Scarred 5 Years After BP Deepwater Oil Spill Seth Borenstein and Cain Burdeau - The Associated Press
go to original April 19, 2015

From above, five years after the BP well explosion, the Gulf of Mexico looks clean, green and whole again, teeming with life — a testament to the resilience of nature.

But there's more than surface shimmering blue and emerald to the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon spill. And it's not as pretty a picture — nor is it as clear.

Federal data and numerous scientific studies show lingering problems. Splotches of oil still dot the seafloor and wads of tarry petroleum-smelling material hide in pockets in the marshes of Barataria Bay. Dolphin deaths have more than tripled. Nests of endangered Kemp's Ridley sea turtles suddenly plummeted after the spill. Some fish have developed skin lesions along with oil in internal organs. Deep sea coral are hurting.

In some cases the connection to the BP spill is solid, in other cases it is harder to prove a direct causal link to the spill of millions of gallons of oil over 87 days.

"Look, we put nature on a treadmill and I think it did very very well. We should consider ourselves lucky," said Chris Reddy of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. But then he said, "It's the things that we don't see that have been a concern."

Read the rest at Tyler Morning Telegraph

We invite you to add your charity or supporting organizations' news stories and coming events to PVAngels so we can share them with the world. Do it now!