Deepwater Horizon: What we learned from worst oil spill ever
Christopher Reddy had had it. The scientist had been studying oil spills for 15 years, but he was frustrated that his lab鈥檚 work was ignored by both government and industry. He figured it was time do something else.聽
A few weeks later, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded.
鈥淚 got a call from a government scientist I knew very well. He said we need someone to go down and do fieldwork. I told him, 鈥楴ah, I quit science. I鈥檓 done.鈥欌��
Why We Wrote This
When a long-term project winds down, reflecting on gains and losses is part of the process. Thousands of experts studied oil spills and the Gulf of Mexico after Deepwater Horizon, the worst oil spill in history.
The Deepwater Horizon explosion, on April 20, 2010, soon became the world鈥檚 biggest maritime oil leak, and Dr. Reddy, a senior scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, soon found himself headed to Louisiana.
鈥淭he guy鈥檚 boss, who I was really good friends with, called me several days later, and he said 鈥楲isten you got to get over this whole 鈥榪uitting this oil spill thing.鈥� Here鈥檚 the deal: You are going to get involved, you will do some good science, it will change your career, and you will make a huge impact,鈥欌�� Dr. Reddy recalls with a chuckle. 鈥淗e was absolutely right.鈥�
The eruption at the wellhead a mile underneath the BP Deepwater Horizon drilling rig 10 years ago was a catastrophic disaster: It killed 11 oil workers, injured 17 more, and poisoned thousands of square miles of water, air, beach, and marsh. Millions of marine animals and seabirds died, and the Gulf鈥檚 vital seafood and tourist industries were paralyzed, bankrupting workers and businesses. The well jetted more than 200 million gallons of oil and gas into the water for 87 days, until it was finally capped July 15, 2010.
The harm from the accident, which dwarfed the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill of 11 million gallons, was indisputable. But scientists, while paying homage to the tragedy, say the spill spawned a bonus: 10 years of intense research into the Gulf of Mexico and oil spills.
鈥淚t鈥檚 been hugely successful,鈥� says Rita Colwell, an acclaimed microbiologist who headed the National Science Foundation and agreed to take a 10-year post to direct the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI), funded with $500 million from BP.
The initiative lists assistance from 4,400 researchers, involvement of more than 380 other scientific groups, production of more than 3,000 sets of data, and 1,400 published papers, not including research done outside of GoMRI.
鈥淲e鈥檝e just been hugely productive. And we鈥檝e worked really hard to keep the public informed,鈥� Dr. Colwell says by telephone from her home near Washington. The program is wrapping up its work with a 鈥渉olistic鈥� overview of the research, she says.
The conclusions of the science are not unequivocal. The role of dispersants, which were injected in the oil plume underwater for the first time, still remains contentious. But researchers did find that natural microbes ate a lot more of the oil than expected. They also found there鈥檚 a narrow window before sunlight converts liquid oil on the surface to a sticky sludge that does not respond to dispersants.
They found that many species recovered faster than predicted, while other species were devastated, some for generations. And the researchers established a foundation of data about the ecology of the Gulf of Mexico that had not existed before.聽
Science often focuses on 鈥渢he smallest molecule or the smallest microorganism,鈥� Dr. Colwell says. The Deepwater research, she adds, involved many in the Gulf community and points to the need to take a broader view that includes impacts on people. 聽
鈥淚t鈥檚 not enough to study the physics, or the dispersion of oil or the chemistry, without understanding the social impacts, which were really extensive in the Gulf,鈥� Dr. Colwell says.
Many others agree.
鈥淭here was a lot of science done,鈥� says Dr. Reddy, who played a key role in the post-spill efforts at the Gulf. 鈥淭en years later we spent millions and millions of dollars to study the spill. We know a lot about this spill.鈥�
But, he says, like many scientists, he is not completely satisfied. He says the initial field work should have included better planning to test and measure different approaches.
鈥淲e don鈥檛 have a consensus agreement about using dispersants on the bottom of the seafloor,鈥� he notes. With another spill, 鈥渨e have unfinished business. There鈥檚 going to be pushback because they didn鈥檛 have the data.鈥�
The BP spill also carried consequences for government, though there is much less consensus on the outcome. Every oil spill is an assault on the environment, but each provides lessons. After an oil well blowout near Santa Barbara, California, in 1969, public outrage helped spawn the first Earth Day and a quick succession of far-reaching federal environmental laws. The Valdez oil spill in 1989 led to the banning of single-hull tankers and navigation safeguards that significantly reduced spills from cargo ships. A May 29 spill of 20,000 metric tons from a diesel storage tank in the Arctic Circle is still challenging efforts to contain it. 聽聽聽
The Deepwater Horizon spill, too, brought cries for industry and government action. A bipartisan commission appointed by President Barack Obama called for tougher safety practices, more and better blowout preventers, and independence of the federal agency overseeing drilling safety enforcement.
Many of those governmental advances have been rolled back under the Trump administration, which has waged a relentless assault on environmental safety and health regulations that stretch back to Richard Nixon鈥檚 presidency.
Donald Boesch, a member of the presidential commission, says the government has lost credibility with its own inspectors and the public, as President Donald Trump and his appointees emphasize a desire to 鈥減roduce more oil and get off the backs of industry,鈥� with safety a seeming afterthought.
There was progress, he says. 鈥淲e are in a better position to be able to tap a well, cap a blowout, much more quickly than we were,鈥� Dr. Boesch says. And he acknowledges the voluminous scientific research that followed the Deepwater event.
鈥淏ut then I would add to that, so what?鈥� Dr. Boesch says from his home in Annapolis, Maryland. 鈥淲e have learned a lot about what the oil does in the environment. But I don鈥檛 think that science has really put us in a better position to respond to another oil spill like that.鈥� Industry would use much the same cleanup techniques for future spills, he says, and 鈥渋t would still be pretty ineffective.鈥�
Nancy Kinner, co-director of the Coastal Response Research Center at the University of New Hampshire, argues that the research gives oil spill responders more tools of knowledge. 鈥淣ow we have a better picture of the whole system, and we understand that if you push here you have a response there.鈥�
鈥淚 don鈥檛 ever want to say that the Deepwater spill was a good thing. It was a horrible, horrible thing in so many ways,鈥� Dr. Kinner says from her home in Georgetown, Maine. 鈥淲hat I prefer to say is adversity often gives us the best opportunity to become better.鈥�
