Remember the plume of dispersed oil that stretched from the wellhead and settled in the deep underwater canyon just south of the wellhead? It turns out the foul feature caused an oily sediment blizzard. Analysis of core samples taken from the canyon where the sediment blizzard came to rest showed the record die-off.

As the oil was flowing, David Hollander at USF was one of the first scientists to find that subsea dispersant application led to the plume of oily water. At the time, I was staffing Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) who sits on the Senate Oceans Subcommittee. Hearing what researchers like Hollander were finding, Sen. Nelson was gravely concerned about the impacts of dispersed oil particles on the Gulf food-web. He filed the Subsea Hydrocarbon Imagery and Planning (SHIP) Act to require the government to track the plume and develop a plan to clean it up. SHIP was never enacted.

Hollander was right to be concerned three years ago. Summarizing the results of the USF study, Hollander says, “Everywhere the plume went, the die-off went.”

Marine Foraminifera by Flickr user Pali Nalu

Gulf Killifish by Louisiana Sea Grant College Program, Louisiana State University

Gills serve fish the way lungs serve humans: they allow for oxygen to enter the bloodstream and remove carbon dioxide. In essence, they “breathe.” Healthy functional gill tissue has a uniform, parallel, accordion appearance. Louisiana State University researchers compared the gill tissue of killifish in an oiled marsh to those in an oil-free marsh. The results? The gill tissue from killifish in the oiled marsh was a mangled mess.

Reports that microscopic organisms and bull minnows were harmed by the disaster three years ago suggest there are more impacts to come. It took years after the Exxon Valdez oil disaster for the Pacific herring population to crash. Harm at the bottom of the food-web manifests incrementally. We may not know for years how top predators like tuna and dolphin will fare.

This week, BP began its defense in the Deepwater Horizon trial. One thing is clear: BP would like the American people and the Judge to believe the disaster is over. There is no doubt: BP will present a court case rivaling its public relations case in the court of public opinion. Gulf wildlife aren’t buying it. Neither should Judge Barbier, and neither should we.

Click here to view the embedded video.

It’s difficult to quantify the harm in an environmental disaster. The Gulf is enormous and oil gushed from over a mile below the surface of the ocean. Because water and wildlife move, it would be near-impossible to find every bit of damage. Researchers found evidence of Deepwater Horizon oil in pelican eggs in Minnesota last year! To compound matters, the impacts are far-reaching into parts of the ecosystem that scientists don’t know much about. For instance, a substantial amount of the oil moved southwest of the Macondo well and settled into a deep underwater canyon.

But for multinational oil companies like BP, the profits are obvious, and they are high.

BP’s 2012 annual report indicates that Chief Executive Bob Dudley, who spoke at the CERAWeek Energy Industry conference yesterday about just about everything but trial, made $2.67 million last year. In the three years since the spill, BP has netted close to $40 billion, even after covering the cost to cap the well, run ubiquitous “our beaches are open” commercials, pay individual claims and pay the largest corporate criminal penalty by the Department of Justice.

Anchor-handling tugboats battle the blazing remnants of the off shore oil rig Deepwater Horizon. U.S. Coast Guard photo.

The law that governs oil spills is clear: since profits from offshore drilling are so high and the consequences are so dangerous, unsafe drillers who spill must compensate for all damage and face penalties. This helps discourage putting profits over safety.

Unbelievably, on the day of our panel, the Washington Post ran an editorial arguing that BP should not face severe penalties. The editorial posed the question, “How much is too much for BP?” In what must be a tagline meant for an April Fool’s Day piece, the editorial continued, “A bill anywhere near that large is impossible to justify.” This is precisely why polluters engage in willful blindness to legal requirements: environmental laws are viewed as somehow less legitimate than tax evasion, racketeering, or labor laws. But crime is crime.

Testimony from the trial shows that this multi-billion dollar corporation had an “every dollar counts” mentality that led them to take egregious safety risks to cut costs, resulting in the loss of eleven lives and over 172 million gallons of crude oil spilled in one of the most productive ecosystems in the world. Misplaced sympathy for BP’s liability is akin to taking pity on Ponzi schemers facing punitive damages for their crimes. BP made calculated business decisions to take dangerous shortcuts in search of profit. The only way to prevent such behavior in the future is to balance the scales of justice so that the reward no longer justifies the risk.

Almost three years after the spill began, the Gulf’s dolphins are still dying in high numbers. Ask the Department of Justice to hold BP fully accountable so we can restore the Gulf of Mexico!

Scientists are still investigating an unprecedented rise in dolphin mortality in the northern gulf. Photo by The Pug Father/Flickr.

But, unlike television, we cannot just write a new scene and magically heal the dolphins. NOAA scientists still haven’t concluded why dolphins are dying across much of the northern Gulf of Mexico, but an in-depth study of 32 dolphins in a heavily oiled section of the Louisiana coast found that many were seriously ill with a constellation of symptoms reminiscent of oil exposure in other mammals.

Congress to the Rescue — Seriously

The RESTORE Act, which became law last summer, gives us our best chance to comprehensively clean up the Gulf and improve habitat for dolphins and many other species of wildlife. Thanks to this new law, The Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Council will be holding hearings throughout the five Gulf States to discuss the development of their comprehensive plan to restore the Gulf ecosystem.

This plan will outline which ecosystem restoration projects will be implemented throughout the Gulf of Mexico. The Council is in an early stage of plan development and intends to release a draft for public comment in spring 2013. This money from the RESTORE Act gives us our best opportunity to heal the Gulf of Mexico, but there are some who would like to dip into the RESTORE Act’s dedicated restoration dollars and use these funds for “economic restoration,” a.k.a pork. 

Ensure that DOJ holds BP fully accountable for their actions>>

Speak Up in Person for Dolphins in the Gulf

Let the Council know that:

• We commend the Council’s commitment to directing 30 percent of the funds to ecosystem restoration under the comprehensive plan as required by the RESTORE Act.
• In addition, the Council should seek to influence state-specific plans to prioritize ecosystem restoration, and oppose any projects that have negative environmental impacts. This will ensure that state-specific projects enhance the environmental benefits of the broader comprehensive plan.
• While every ecosystem restoration project helps restore and sustain the Gulf’s natural resource-based economy, some purely economic development projects threaten to harm its environment. From the Gulf’s $41 billion recreational fishing impact to its $31 billion tourism industry, the region’s economy relies on a clean and healthy environment. Gulf ecosystems, and the rich resources they support, are also key to the broader national economy.
• In the spirit of the promises made by the President and leaders in Congress, we strongly urge the Council to tighten its focus on restoring the environment, and reject any project that undermines that goal.
• The people of the Gulf rely on meaningful environmental restoration, informed and supported by science, to support a strong and healthy economy now, and for generations to come. 
• Restoring the Gulf’s environment, cleaning up our coastlines and rebuilding our wetlands  will protect people and property from future hurricanes and flooding, create new jobs and  safeguard the fishing, tourism and other jobs that depend on a healthy Gulf of Mexico.
• Restoration must take a comprehensive ecosystem-scale approach—this means addressing everything from freshwater inflows to our estuaries to our offshore marine environment.

Make a Difference at the Hearings

The public engagement sessions are part of the Council’s efforts to ensure robust public input throughout the entire process. And it is of dire importance that the public – you, me, and your uncle Bob – get out to these hearings to voice support for using all of the RESTORE Act dollars slated for ecosystem restoration on comprehensively restoring the Gulf of Mexico

RSVP for one of these upcoming public meetings:

Tuesday, March 12
Texas – Doors open at 5:15PM and the program will be 6:00 to 8:00PM
Pasadena Convention Center, 7902 Fairmont Pkwy  Pasadena, TX 77507

Wednesday, March 13
Florida – 6:00 PM EST
Karen A. Steidinger Auditorium, Fish and Wildlife Research Institute, 100 Eighth Ave. S.E., St. Petersburg, FL

Help protect Gulf dolphins! Ensure that the Department of Justice holds BP fully accountable for restoring Gulf habitat! And make sure that money is spent on ecosystem restoration not pork!

Below is a timeline of major events that have occurred in the past 1,000 days.

Help us spread the word that the oil spill is not truly over by sharing this image on Facebook!

There are persistent rumors that BP might be trying to settle for less than half of what the company could face if brought to trial. Help dolphins and other wildlife in the Gulf by urging the Department of Justice to hold BP fully accountable for the oil spill.

Sources:

- Restorethegulf.org, “First oiled bird is recovered.”
- Restorethegulf.org, “NOAA Expands Fishing Closed Area in Gulf of Mexico.”
- The New York Times, “Effects of Spill Spread as Tar Balls Are Found.”
- TIME, “100 Days of the BP Spill: A Timeline.”
- The White House, “Executive Order 13554–Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Task Force.”
- Bloomberg, “BP Oil Still Ashore One Year After End of Gulf Spill.”
- PNAS, “Impact of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on a deep-water coral community in the Gulf of Mexico.”
- University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, “Study confirms oil from Deepwater Horizon disaster entered food chain in the Gulf of Mexico.”
- The Times-Picayune, “About 565,000 pounds of oiled material from Deepwater Horizon stirred up by Hurricane Isaac.”
- The New York Times, “BP Will Plead Guilty and Pay Over $4 Billion.”
- Georgia Tech Biology, “Gulf of Mexico Clean-Up Makes 2010 Spill 52-Times More Toxic.”
- University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science, “UMiami scientists partner with NOAA, Stanford and U of N Texas to study post spill fish toxicology.”
- NOAA Fisheries Service, “2010-2013 Cetacean Unusual Mortality Event in Northern Gulf of Mexico.”
- The Times-Picayune, “Transocean to pay $1.4 billion to settle pollution, safety violations in Gulf oil spill.”

Courtesy of the Restore the Mississippi River Delta coalition.

Photo credit: flickr / thepugfather

Yesterday, BP agreed to pay a record criminal fine for the Gulf oil spill, but vowed to vigorously contest the charges it is facing under federal environmental law. Money from these penalties will go to restoring the Gulf.

BP Must be Held Accountable

Dolphins in one heavily oiled section of the Louisiana coast are suffering and even dying from a variety of symptoms–including anemia, low blood sugar, and lung disease–that suggest exposure to oil.

But media reports indicate that BP might be attempting to negotiate an agreement with the Department of Justice to pay less than half of what the company could face at trial for its violations of the Clean Water Act and the Oil Pollution Act.

Speak up for Dolphins

The Department of Justice and BP have been in intense negotiations and could announce an agreement at any time.

BP’s fines need to be large enough to restore the Gulf of Mexico for dolphins and other wildlife—and to send a clear message that America holds reckless polluters fully accountable.

Gulf dolphins need us to help ensure the Department of Justice holds BP fully accountable for restoring Gulf habitat–please add your voice today!

Scientists are still investigating an unprecedented rise in dolphin mortality in the northern gulf. Photo by The Pug Father/Flickr.

This study looks specifically at the strandings between January and April of 2011–a period when a high number of near-term or newborn dolphins were found.

In a statement, Graham Worthy, a University of Central Florida provosts distinguished professor of biology and co-author of the study, identified three distinct factors contributing to the deaths, “The oil spill and cold winter of 2010 had already put significant stress on their food resources, resulting in poor body condition and depressed immune response. It appears the high volumes of cold freshwater coming from snowmelt water that pushed through Mobile Bay and Mississippi Sound in 2011 was the final blow.”

However, the new study has been criticized in some quarters for not including the toxicology reports currently being done by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). According to the Biloxi Sun Herald:

Moby Solangi, executive director of the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies in Gulfport, said it’s too early to speculate as to the causes of the dolphins’ deaths because toxicology results have not been released. He said turtles and fish would have been the first affected by the pulses of cold water, and that did not happen.

“This is a different phenomenon,” he said. “It has nothing to do with cold water. You would have seen turtles die first. You would have seen fish die first.”

He added, “All the animals that died were responded to by us, necropsied by us and checked out by us and the government has all the tissues and will be conducting the results. They are the ones who should be writing this thing, rather than somebody who doesn’t have that data.”

Meanwhile, NOAA recently opened an investigation into the deaths of more than 120 dolphins off the Texas coast. The agency is investigating if these deaths are related to a toxic algal bloom known as red tide or if there is a connection to the dolphin strandings elsewhere in the gulf. The Associated Press reports:

… [S]ome of the dolphins washed up underweight, said Heidi Whitehead, state coordinator for the Galveston-based Texas Marine Mammal Stranding Network, a nonprofit organization that is the only authorized stranding network in Texas. Mase said that has not been the pattern for past red tide-related deaths.

Some of the dolphins also were found with discolored teeth and lung infections, prompting researchers to investigate whether they were affected by the same disease found in more than 700 strandings in the northern Gulf, an area stretching from the Texas-Louisiana line east to the Florida Panhandle. Researchers suspect the lung disease may be connected to the millions of gallons of oil that fouled the Gulf in April 2010 after a well blowout on a BP-operated rig, but have yet to make a final determination, Mase said.

There is some hopeful news for dolphins and other wildlife in the Gulf of Mexico, however. Congress recently passed the RESTORE Act, which dedicates the fines collected from BP and other parties responsible for the 2010 Gulf oil spill to restoring the Gulf Coast’s wildlife, environment and economy.

Over the coming months, the National Wildlife Federation, together with wildlife advocates across the country, will be working hard to make sure Gulf states and the Obama Administration ensure that every dollar is used to help restore the Gulf and increase the resiliency of its ecosystems and communities.

Please consider making a generous donation to help continue this important fight for dolphins and many more Gulf wildlife >>

Congress Passes Gulf RESTORE Act

More than two years into the worst oil disaster in U.S. history, Congress passed the RESTORE Act today, which ensures that money from BP’s oil spill fines will be dedicated to Gulf Coast restoration.

This is a HUGE win for brown pelicans, dolphins and sea turtles that are still being impacted by the oil spill disaster that began in April 2010.

>> Share this photo on Facebook and help spread the good news to your family and friends

Why was this bill so important? Under the Clean Water Act, BP could face as much as $20 billion in fines for its responsibility in the oil disaster.

National Wildlife Federation and our members and supporters have been fighting for two years to make sure the Gulf gets the help it deserves. Thank you so much to everyone who helped make this a reality!

Keystone XL Provision Rejected

The icing on the cake is that the legislation passed today does NOT include language that would have forced approval of the Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline. This was a very real threat and would have put endangered whooping cranes and swift foxes at risk of toxic oil spills, while also driving a rapid expansion of habitat-destroying tar sands operations that could put the lives of thousands of Canada’s wolves and caribou at risk.

This tremendous victory for wildlife is a testament to how Americans can hold our elected officials accountable to protecting America’s wildlife.

Let’s go celebrate!

Tar mat coats marsh in Bay Jimmy off Louisiana’s Barataria Bay, March 2012 (NWF staff photo)

Ryan Lambert has been a Cajun fishing and hunting guide for 31 years and is alarmed by the decline he’s seen in the last two.

“This [Bay Jimmy] island should be covered with shorebirds and there are none,” he says. “They ought to be nesting in here. Any island before this oil spill, you come up to an island like this and you can’t hear yourself think. And look, it’s void of life.” Lambert says his speckled trout catch is also down 98 percent.

“You know, we’re used to going out … where this water is coming through and [picking] up 40 fish right there, no problem in a half hour,” he says. “You go try to catch a fish there right now, that’s not happening.” Lambert says he’s tired of hearing “Everything’s fine, come on down,” a message in some of BP’s ads. “Our whole life is upside-down, on hold, waiting to see what happens.”

He says two years later, it’s not fine — and it’s far from over.

It’s not just BP that wants to pretend everything’s fine—plenty of members of Congress have been more eager to rush back to reckless drilling than they have been to commit the federal government to comprehensive Gulf restoration.

I joined The Big Picture with Thom Hartmann last week to talk about continued Congressional inaction in the face of ongoing evidence of the oil’s destruction, particularly the troubling dolphin deaths:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to ask your members of Congress dedicate BP’s oil spill fines and penalties to Gulf restoration.

It’s a double whammy of trouble for them. First they’ll endure a barrage of painful and disruptive noise from the surveys, and should the oil platforms ever get built, their lives will be at risk daily from the inevitable spills. Two years after the BP Spill in the Gulf, have we failed to learn our lesson?

Blasts that Separate Mother and Calf

Baby dolphins, known as calves, will stay close to their mothers for up to 6 years. (Photo by J. D. Ebberly/Flickr)

According to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the cumulative noise of all sea-going vessels is an incessant drone of near-constant sound in a growing number of oceans regions. Seismic surveys, conducted during offshore oil and gas exploration, use rapid discharges of compressed air from air gun arrays. These send acoustic shock waves down through the water column that is reflected back from sub-sea rock strata. The blasts are emitted every 10 seconds and may be as loud as 250 decibels.

Other sources of acoustic pollution associated with offshore oil and gas activities include drilling, platform machinery, vessel traffic, low-flying aircraft and helicopters, and the movement of oil, gas or water through valves and under-sea pipelines. These intense sounds travel a long distance across the ocean. A 2009 workshop of experts, sponsored by Okeanos Foundation for the Sea, reported, “These surveys can last for months and the noise they produce is virtually ubiquitous in the world’s oceans.”

In the end, the most tragic thing may be the degrading of habitat. “Chronic ocean noise – the ubiquitous din of shipping and fishing vessels, seismic surveys, pile driving: all of it – slowly but surely degrades the quality of habitat available to acoustically sensitive species,” writes Dr. Rob Williams of Oceans Initiative. Unlike some of the more intractable threats facing aquatic life however, this one is very solvable he writes. We need to cut the noise, and that means turning down the volume on the underwater heavy metal concert, not turning it up.

Sick Dolphins Reported in Gulf

Dolphins are social and intelligent animals who live in large groups called pods. Here is a dolphin dance, off of Kona Coast, Hawaii. (Photo by SteveD/Flickr)

These dolphins have a low body weight, anemia, low blood sugar and symptoms of liver and lung disease. It is so serious that the fisheries arm of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) declared an “unusual mortality event” for cetaceans (whales and dolphins) in the northern Gulf of Mexico from February 2010 to the present.

As of March 25, there were 706 cetacean “strandings” or beaching events of which five percent stranded alive and 95 percent stranded dead. Repeat: 95 percent dead. Even in the aftermath of the BP/Deepwater Horizon spill, we need to remind the oil and gas industry and its backers that seismic surveys and oil drilling can have huge consequences. After the BP spill, NWF Senior Scientist Doug Inkley said, “The Gulf oil disaster is to marine life what smoking is to humans – it could kill you, and if it doesn’t your general health suffers.”

We are still living with the legacy of the BP spill. In fact, some of the results are just emerging. Let’s not have a Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Atlantic.

You can help NWF’s call for wildlife-friendly clean energy by donating to help us protect marine mammals and by learning more about our Gulf recovery efforts.

Striped dolphins swim through BP oil, April 2012 (NOAA's National Ocean Service)

Based on comprehensive physicals of 32 live dolphins from Barataria Bay in the summer of 2011, preliminary results show that many of the dolphins in the study are underweight, anemic, have low blood sugar and/or some symptoms of liver and lung disease. Nearly half also have abnormally low levels of the hormones that help with stress response, metabolism and immune function.

Researchers fear that some of the study dolphins are in such poor health that they will not survive. One of these dolphins, which was last observed and studied in late 2011, was found dead in January 2012. [...]

NOAA is sharing the preliminary results from the study so that stranding responders and veterinarians can better care for live stranded dolphins and look for similar health conditions.

Since February 2010, more than 675 dolphins have stranded in the northern Gulf of Mexico (Franklin County, Florida, to the Louisiana/Texas border)–a much higher rate than the usual average of 74 dolphins per year, prompting NOAA to declare an Unusual Mortality Event (UME) and investigate the cause of death for as many of the dolphins as possible. The vast majority of stranded dolphins have been found dead; however, 33 have stranded alive and seven have been taken to facilities for rehabilitation.

Last year, the National Wildlife issued a status report on Gulf wildlife and ecosystems warning  to watch dolphin populations for “reduced fitness of adults” – exactly what NOAA is now detailing. ”The poor health of dolphins in the oil spill area was to be expected,” says NWF Senior Scientist Doug Inkley. “The Gulf oil disaster is to marine life what smoking is to humans – it could kill you, and if it doesn’t, your general health suffers.”

Dolphins aren’t the only species showing signs of long-term impacts. A study last year documented the oil’s impact on Gulf killifish, a critical part of the Gulf’s food chain.

Just last week, National Wildlife Federation staffers found oil remains in Barataria Bay marshes and discovered a dead pelican with oil on it. The trip was a reminder that Mississippi River Delta restoration is needed now more than ever. While the Senate passed the RESTORE Act as part of its transportation bill, the House has yet to act.

Speak Up for Gulf Restoration

Speak up for Gulf wildlife and ask your Members of Congress to protect the Gulf’s wildlife and communities by passing the RESTORE Act >>