Deepwater Horizon Effects Need Monitoring

The impact of the BP oil spill should be monitored for years. That's the lesson from a recent government-funded survey of the Gulf of Mexico that found more sick fish in the area of the 2010 spill than anywhere else. Marine scientists with the University of South Florida, USA, and other institutions need to continue their essential research. A minority partner in the BP well agreed on Friday to pay a USD90 million settlement, but the federal government and the Gulf states must keep holding BP accountable. 

In late 2010 and early 2011, commercial fishermen working the area the spill reported seeing lesions and other problems with fish they had never noticed before. Some brought their catches to scientists, who found the fish had enlarged livers, gallbladders and bile ducts, indications that oil had affected their immune systems.

 

Last summer, University of South Florida (USF) scientists chartered fishing boats and set out to examine the entire Gulf. The group caught about 4,000 fish and reported that the oil spill area had the highest level of diseased fish.

 

The USF scientist in charge of the project, Steve Murawski, an oceanographer who previously served as a top federal fisheries expert, said the findings do not necessarily link the diseased fish to the Deepwater Horizon spill. That same area, he said, has lots of oil rigs and even natural oil vents on the seabed that could be the source of the contamination. More studies are needed to show whether oil production was the cause and whether the oil came from BP's stricken rig.

 

An oceanographer at Louisiana State University said the USF survey comports with the impact he has seen on red snapper. And there are signs the lesions may have spread to fish in other areas. More surveying is being done, and the goal is to present a fuller picture of the damage from the spill by 20^th April 2012.

 

USF and other educational institutions are performing a vital public service by examining the spill's effects over the long term. The surveys will contribute to understanding how millions of barrels of oil and millions more gallons of chemical dispersant impacted the Gulf. That will be important in assessing fines against BP and its business partners and managing the Gulf's rehabilitation. Many of these impacts will not be clear for years, and Washington and the Gulf states need to hold BP accountable for as long as the restoration takes. Protecting the multi-billion-dollar public resource that is the Gulf must remain a priority for the nation even as the shock of the disaster fades.