Sparkling waters hide some lasting harm from 2010 oil spill

Ten years after a well blew wild under a BP platform in Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 men and touching off nation’s worst offshore oil spill, gulf waters sparkle in sunlight, its fish are safe to eat, and thick, black oil longer visibly stains beaches and estuaries. Brown pelicans, a symbol of spill’s ecological dam because so many dived after fish and came up coated with oil, are doing well.

But scientists who spent dece studying Deeter Horizon spill still worry about its effects on dolphins, whales, sea turtles, small fish vital to food chain, and ancient corals in cold, dark depths.

gulf's ecosystem is so complex and interconnected that it's impossible to take any single part as a measure of its overall health, said Rita Colwell, who has led  Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative.

BP put up $500 million for independent GoMRI program soon after spill, part of more than $69 billion it says it has spent overall, including spill response, cleanup, settlements, restoration and or costs.

Some scientists say recovery has been remarkable since those dark spring days in 2010, when oil billowing from sea floor began

But major concerns remain.

Here's a look at how some key aspects of ecosystem are doing.

DOLPHINS AND WHALES

“Initially, industry experts were saying, ‘ dolphins and whales, y’re smart. y’re t going to swim into oiled areas,’" recalled Nancy Kinner, co-director of

But cetaceans must surface to brea, rising through oil that spre across more than

Lung disease and or ailments caused by spill killed more than 1,000 bottlese dolphins over several years, many of m in Louisiana's hard-hit Barataria Bay, National Oceanic and Atmospheric ministration

Whales almost certainly suffered similar oil-caused ailments but can’t be safely examined, Schwacke said. AA estimated spill killed 17 percent of gulf's Bryde’s whales,

“ tood whales, sperm whales, Bryde's whales, right whales ... se populations which were somewhat in jeopardy prior to oil spill have been declining 5 or 10% a year ever since oil spill,” said

Going forward, some BP money will go toward improving conditions for dolphins and whales. se include studies on reducing effects of human-produced ise, such as seismic airguns and ship propellers, on whales and dolphins, which communicate and navigate by sound.

FISH

How fisheries would survive was hard to fathom while slicks fouled estuaries where many fish spawn, but scientists haven’t found any widespre species die-offs, said

“Fisheries in marshes where oil came on shore have continued to flourish. Recreational fishing continues to be productive and a very popular activity even in Barataria Bay, Louisiana, where highest oil impact was,” he said.

It's a different story farr out and deeper down, where small fish feed top food and sport fish such as tuna or grouper, as well as whales. Murawski, w a professor at University of South Florida and director of a GoMRI

Laboratory research has found that oil damd fish larvae's developing hearts and bones, MacDonald said.

Future restoration projects include plans to get anglers to use equipment that would slowly lower reef fish y don’t keep, rar than simply tossing m back. Ar project aims to find best escape hatches for “bycatch” hauled up in shrimp nets, and persue shrimpers to use m.

MARSHES

oil turned tall marsh grass as black as cinders and sank into muck across Louisiana's coastal marshes, a nursery for an array of birds and fish.

“Once all roots and so on disintegrate, whole marsh surface, all soil, is lost. Given fact that re is rapid sea-level rise and land is sinking, it’s almost impossible to recover,” said marine scientist Boesch. Oiled marsh shorelines that weren't lost immediately were more likely to

GoMRI surveys found birds, snails and crabs back at pre-spill densities, Wilson said.

But insects worry Louisiana State University researcher

n her funding dried up, but in August 2019, she collected one last round of samples and found surprisingly few insects. “Something is going on right w, and it’s deeply affected," she said, but she can't tell what caused it.

vast majority of oiled wetlands were in Louisiana, where officials expect to use more than $7 billion in oil spill money to

DEEP CORAL AND SEA BOTTOM

Far below surface,

Before spill, scientists didn’t kw that deep-sea corals were severely hurt by oil dispersing in a plume far below surface. y discovered that rising oil interacts with plankton and n “sws down from surface and eventually lands," changing chemical biology of sea bed, MacDonald said.

“So se are things we’ve learned. And ne of se are good things,” MacDonald said.

Scientists plan to study se deep habitats more extensively, including mapping gulf's seafloor. To protect