https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-deepwater-horizon-oil-spill-was-a-cover-up-not-a-cleanup/

Feb 17, 2020
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The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Was a Cover-Up, Not a Cleanup
A controlled fire following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion
and spill in the Gulf of Mexico. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication
Specialist 2nd Class Justin Stumberg)

Deepwater Horizon, called “the worst environmental disaster in American
history
<https://grist.org/business-technology/what-bp-doesnt-want-you-to-know-about-the-2010-gulf-of-mexico-spill/>,”
was one of the environmental stories I covered at HuffPost a decade ago.

“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,” Grist reported.

For 87 days, the leak was unstoppable.

“The damaged Macondo wellhead, located around 5,000 feet beneath the
ocean’s surface, leaked an estimated 3.19 million barrels (over 130 million
gallons) of oil into the Gulf of Mexico — making the spill the largest
accidental ocean spill in history,” according to Grist journalist Mark
Hertsgaard, in an article written three years after the accident.

“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.”

In revisiting the terrible accident, which produced lasting environmental
contamination, it’s important to examine the Obama administration’s “pragmatic”
decisions
<https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/the-spill-the-scandal-and-the-president-193093/>
that caused, allowed to proceed, and ultimately failed to remediate the
disaster by:

   - Allowing the driller, BP, to cut corners, and to self-regulate
   - Ignoring well-known corruption within the federal agency charged with
   oversight
   - Dismissing concerns posed by its own scientists
   - Bypassing authentic remediation and instead pouring 1.84 million
   gallons
   <https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/public_lands/energy/dirty_energy_development/oil_and_gas/gulf_oil_spill/dispersants.html>
   of a chemical product called Corexit
   <https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/public_lands/energy/dirty_energy_development/oil_and_gas/gulf_oil_spill/dispersants.html>
   into the Gulf of Mexico without regard for environmental or health
   consequences.

This was done, ostensibly, to clean up the contamination. The reality is
that Corexit did not clean up the over 92,000 miles of spilled oil.
Instead, it visually covered up the extent of the damage done by the fossil
fuel industry. Protecting the industry’s image superseded the
environmentally sound response to the worst environmental disaster in the
U.S.

*Unsound Environmental Decisions*

Ten years later, it’s easier to recognize that such decisions, which
elected officials at the time viewed as pragmatic, can produce major,
ongoing negative ramifications when the superficial solution fails to
address the problem.

Revisiting the now decade-long evolution of the disaster and the cover-up,
a recent article in Common Dreams reports on a study published in Science
<https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/02/12/surprised-no-disgusted-yes-study-shows-deepwater-horizon-oil-spread-much-further?>,
which reveals that “a significant amount of oil was never picked up in
satellite images or captured by barriers that were meant to stop the
spread.”

One of the study’s authors notes that “[o]ur results change established
perceptions about the consequences of oil spills by showing that toxic and
invisible oil can extend beyond the satellite footprint at potentially
lethal and sub-lethal concentrations to a wide range of wildlife in the
Gulf of Mexico,” with “invisible oil” reaching an area 30% larger than the
92,500 square miles experts identified
<https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/02/12/surprised-no-disgusted-yes-study-shows-deepwater-horizon-oil-spread-much-further?>
at the time.

Public officials may exonerate themselves for a bad decision by claiming
that the terrible outcome could only be known with 20/20 hindsight. But in
this case, that’s not true.

As a health reporter back in 2010, I always read labels, because products
sometimes contain understudied toxic ingredients, which are mistakenly
regarded by the general public as harmless when diluted or dispersed — a
claim made then and now by industry and its media spokespeople, and
ignorantly codified even by journalists well-versed in other areas but
overly zealous in a unilateral defense of science. I therefore researched
Corexit, which, as I reported back then in HuffPost
<https://www.huffpost.com/entry/bp-oil-spill-cleanup-agen_b_610154>, is a
dispersant that its producer, a company called NALCO, claimed on its
website was “safer than dish soap.”

My specific concerns were, first, that the use of the product would spread
the oil throughout the waters of the gulf, making it harder to pick up and
remove the spilled oil. Because Corexit was known as a dispersant, I could
not understand why the government chose to use it.

According to the Center for Biological Diversity
<https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/public_lands/energy/dirty_energy_development/oil_and_gas/gulf_oil_spill/dispersants.html>,
“Dispersants are chemicals that are sprayed on a surface oil slick to break
down the oil into smaller droplets that more readily mix with the water.
Dispersants do not reduce the amount of oil entering the environment, but
push the effects of the spill underwater.”

I also was concerned about the biological hazards of exposure to Corexit’s
proprietary and undisclosed ingredients. The claim that Corexit was safer
than dish soap did not account for possible health impacts of ingredients
in soap, when used at such scale in combination with the already toxic oil.
It turned out that this concern was shared by scientists.

A study published in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Pollution
<https://grist.org/business-technology/what-bp-doesnt-want-you-to-know-about-the-2010-gulf-of-mexico-spill/>
found that crude oil becomes 52 times more toxic when combined with Corexit.

Government scientists also found that the combination of Corexit and crude
oil “caused terrible damage to gulf wildlife and ecosystems, including an
unprecedented number of seafood mutations; declines of up to 80 percent in
seafood catch; and massive die-offs of the microscopic life-forms at the
base of the marine food chain.”

The Government Accountability Project noted that “as a result of Corexit’s
perceived success, Corexit … has become the dispersant of choice in the
U.S. to ‘clean up’ oil spills.”

*Protecting the Fossil Fuel Industry and Destroying the Gulf of Mexico*

Proper management of the disaster might have entailed curtailing drilling
activities, getting sufficient payback from the offending company to
undertake complete environmental remediation, and providing aid to affected
communities.

Although BP eventually was held “responsible for the oil spill as a result
of its deliberate misconduct and gross negligence” by a federal court
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_litigation> in 2014, that
did not alter the management of the clean-up. The Obama administration
accepted BP’s cosmetic solution — something that improved appearances — and
silenced concerns. It was a cover-up, not a cleanup.

Fortified by President Obama’s promise
<https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/the-spill-the-scandal-and-the-president-193093/>
that “the buck stops with me,” the gulf oil spill was deep-sixed, and
disappeared from headlines and news accounts. Meanwhile, the very real
contamination of the Gulf of Mexico continued, worsened and spread.

The government missed addressing — and, in fact, increased — a vast
ecological harm. Contaminating water, creating dead zones
<https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2010/06/22/energy-agriculture-and-the-environment-dead-zones-and-the-oil-spill-in-the-gulf-of-mexico/>
and killing off wildlife in order to perpetuate an industry exemplifies a
profound disorder in priorities. There is nothing pragmatic about it.

Now, like a toxic salad dressing concocted by industry and government, the
blend of Corexit and oil has traveled miles beyond the original spill
location, killing 50% of all marine wildlife wherever it spreads.

*Environmental Talking Points*

The ongoing tragedy of Deepwater Horizon is relevant today, because it
challenges both people and government. How can citizens move beyond slick
buzzwords and cosmetic approaches to environmental dilemmas embedded in
systemic infrastructures? Talking points with an environmental theme don’t
really reveal much. When politicians fail to define their plans, they use
talking points as a protective cover for just about any policy decision.
Some people trust or like politicians and don’t look further into what they
are being sold. Blatantly partisan media outlets don’t fulfill their
traditional journalistic role by delving into policy differences. They tend
to focus superficially, on personalities.

For example, based on New Hampshire exit polls, The Washington Post
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/exit-polls-2020-new-hampshire-primary/>
reported that 29% of voters who view climate as their top issue voted for
Pete Buttigeig on that basis. This reveals that some people are unable to
distinguish between a verbal assurance, such as Buttigeig provides, and
Bernie Sanders’ concrete climate plan, which was rated A+ by the Center for
Biological Diversity Action Fund’s Environmental Voter Guide
<https://centeractionfund.org/environmental-report-card/>. The center gave
Buttigeig’s proposed environmental policies a C- rating.

While Republicans are blatantly anti-environmental, Democrats come off as
well-spoken and dedicated to climate action. But history tells us that
posing as an environmentalist while pursuing anti-environmental policies is
a Democratic tradition, which Democratic voters need to acknowledge if we
really want to act on climate rather than fall for polished phrases and
firm assurances. Joe Biden’s climate change adviser
<https://readsludge.com/2019/05/10/bidens-climate-adviser-earned-1-million-from-natural-gas-company/>
is a fossil fuel industry veteran. Michael Bloomberg supported the use of
fossil fuels by pouring millions of dollars into scientific research that
aimed (unsuccessfully) to remediate fracking infrastructures
<https://www.truthdig.com/articles/in-this-election-the-climate-should-trump-everything-else/>
from leaking methane. Jay Inslee changed his stance to oppose two gas
projects
<https://www.opb.org/news/article/methanol-plant-kalama-washington-jay-inslee-oppose/>
he had previously supported — right before announcing his presidential
aspirations. Yet many wrongly considered him the “climate expert” among the
Democratic candidates.

The Democratic Party’s track record for timely action in environmental
matters can no longer be given a pass. It must be measured by the current
state of multiple ecological crises that have taken place under its watch,
not merely by comparison to the Republicans’ dire and destructive actions.

It’s time to get real about crucial planning, which Democrats have
historically paid lip service to and failed to enact. They defer to
industries and billionaires, some of whom like to pose before the
life-or-death issue of planetary survival — as if they own that, too.

Ten years after the Deepwater Horizon contamination, the gas and oil
industry still has a chokehold on both parties in our political system, the
cleanliness of which they pollute.

The Deepwater Horizon spill was a flashing red light to prompt us to stop
and reconsider these fossil fuel drilling activities, which had been
critiqued a decade ago. But that warning was ignored.

Unless someone at a private dinner records something that was never meant
to reach the public, we can never cite evidence of backstage conversations
and deals that determine the future of life on this planet.

But more and more people can see the evidence:

   - A brutal unraveling of sane environmental policies and regulations
   - A blatantly partisan media funded by corporate interests
   - A heavy hand on the nomination and electoral process
   - The condition of the gulf 10 years later
   - The destruction of Australia right now.