![]() “Nobody was ready for this scale of pollution. “It was an entire Gulf of Mexico-wide event,” said Tracey Sutton, a marine scientist at Nova Southeastern University. ![]() Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images In this photo taken on 14 June 2010, crosses with descriptions of fish, wildlife and summer pastimes potentially lost to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill are displayed in a front yard in Grand Isle, Louisiana. The seafood industry lost nearly $1bn, while house prices in the region declined by as much as 8% for at least five years, according to a report by the conservation group Oceana. “We were quite surprised that among the most contaminated species was the fast-swimming yellowfin tuna as they are not found at the bottom of the ocean where most oil pollution in the Gulf occurs,” said lead author Erin Pulster, a researcher at the university’s college of marine science. The extent of the exposure has startled researchers. Many of the species are popular types of seafood. A separate study of 2,500 individual fish from 91 species by the University of South Florida found oil exposure in all of them. Recent research by the University of Florida found the richness of species in the Gulf has declined by more than a third due to direct and indirect impacts of the spill. Scientists have also found lingering problems within the web of marine life. Dolphins started dying in record numbers, tuna and amberjack developed deformities to their heart and other organs. Many of the fishermen and women used their boats to help the clean-up effort by deploying booms and spreading oil dispersant.Įven after the Gulf was declared safe to fish in again, crews initially reported pulling in smaller catches of oddly deformed fish with oozing sores. The fishing industry is a major constituent of life in southern Louisiana and shutting down the ability to catch fish, oysters and shrimp was a major blow to communities. “I don’t think it’s recovered, to tell you the truth.” “It was a bit like the coronavirus, just dead,” she said. The nearby town of Pointe à la Hache was turned into a “ghost town” as fishing opportunities vanished, Kimble said. The process has also been worsened by the oil and gas industry’s practice of forging canals through wetlands, which has introduced corrosive salt water. Kimble has had to raise her house twice on stilts due to the threat of flooding in an area prone to storms and coastal erosion accelerated by the climate crisis. It was even more depressing than Hurricane Katrina and that flooded my house.” “It was impending doom, it affected the fisheries and the birds. “It was a bit like a bad dream,” said Albertine Kimble, a retiree who has spent the past two decades in Carlisle, a small town south of New Orleans. The recovery has been patchy, with some businesses unable to recover and some people forced to move away. A brown pelican coated in heavy oil wallows in the surf on 4 June 2010 on East Grand Terre Island, Louisiana.
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