One Year After the Explosion:  Reflections from WCV President Ed Clark

Perhaps it is an ironic joke of the universe that we observe two significant events this week.  First, April 22 marks the 41^st commemoration of Earth Day, the global celebration of the planet and the day on which we reaffirm our commitment to protecting the environment. 

The second event is not quite so laudable.  This week we also remember the day on which “We the People” failed most miserably to live up to our responsibilities to care for the Earth and the natural resources on which all life depends, and allowed the worst manmade environmental disaster in U.S. history to begin.

On April 20, 2010 a terrible accident and explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform claimed the lives of eleven men.  Two days later – on April 22, 2010 and the 40th anniversary of Earth Day – the drilling platform sank, causing the blowout of the well, subsequently dumping more than 200 million gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico. 

To complicate this horrible scenario, the rupture of the well took place more than a mile beneath the surface – well beyond the range of conventional control technology.  In addition to the crude petroleum that flowed for the next three months, millions more gallons of chemical dispersant were deliberately (and illegally) pumped into the stream of escaping oil, to break the oil into smaller particles and prevent it from reaching the surface. 

In an instant, the web-of-life in the Gulf of Mexico was changed profoundly, both for humans and for all other living organisms. 

Following such an incredible event, logic would tell us that we would be hard at work to be sure such a disaster never happens again.  However, the sad truth is, we have done almost nothing to prevent a recurrence of this devastating spill.  

Today, it is not a question of if such a spill will happen again, but when! 

Almost as quickly as the oil burst from the floor of the Gulf, a campaign was launched by BP and the government to control what information found its way to the public.  A legal and regulatory cordon was established to control who had access to the impact area.   A regulatory firewall was also created that restricted and limited how the impacts of the spill were measured and portrayed.  

Even before the first horrifying images of oiled wildlife in the Gulf reached the public, rules were put in place to exclude from the region the thousands of qualified, certified, and experienced wildlife care professionals who normally respond to the hundreds of spills that take place in this country every year.   Instead of allowing experienced professionals to participate in the wildlife recovery effort, the federal government dispatched its own employees, most of whom serve in administrative positions.  The bureaucratic labyrinth that was created to limit access to the area would have made Rube Goldberg proud.  As a result, most affected wildlife had to fend for itself, because there were neither people nor resources available to find or recover the victims of this spill.

If it were not so depressingly serious, the statements of the Unified Command about the impacts to wildlife and fisheries would be laughable.  The federal government states that around 10,000 animals “were recovered“, dead or alive, from this spill.  The clear intent of this message is to imply that these were all the animals affected.  Yet when we look at the results of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, which was only about seven percent as large as the BP spill in the Gulf, we see that there were approximately a quarter-million birds alone affected by that spill in Alaska.  The BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico was almost twenty times larger, yet the government claims that only four percent as many birds and marine mammals were affected.  What’s wrong with this picture?

So, how should we view this situation?   Is it over?  Have we learned anything?   Are we safer today than we were a year ago?  What has changed?

First, it is too early to call any analysis “retrospective“, because oil is still coming ashore around the Gulf every single day.  For Admiral Thad Allen, the incident response commander, to have asserted that 75 percent of the oil somehow disappeared was ludicrous, at best – if not criminal.   

Fish, shellfish, marine mammals, and other aquatic organisms are still exposed to the oil, every single day! 

Birds that use the in-shore and coastal waters of the Gulf are still being oiled and contaminated, every single day!  

The bodies of dead marine mammals and turtles are washing ashore – every single day – at rates much higher than was the case before the spill. 

As the breeding rookeries are being populated by the diversity of coastal bird populations, the implications of the oiled environment are amplified.  So, what have we learned, and what have we done about it?

The depressing reality is that we seemed to have learned almost nothing.  Further, we have done almost nothing!

Not a single law has been passed to make deep water drilling safer.  Not a single recommendation from the bipartisan Oil Spill Commission report has been enacted into law.  Instead, public officials, like Virginia’s Governor Bob McDonnell, are calling for the expansion of off-shore drilling and the fast-track processing of permit applications. 

Only organizations like the Wildlife Center of Virginia continue to speak out on behalf of the wildlife and fisheries of the Gulf.  We continue to remind our elected officials and agency personnel that we must act if we are to prevent a recurrence of the tragic spill that took place just a year ago.  We remember so that others will not forget!

The problem with democracy is that the focus of the government shifts as soon as the attention of the public is diverted.  The blessing of a democratic system is that people and organizations that care, even if the general public has moved on, can still make a difference.

So, perhaps it is fitting that Earth Day and the anniversary of the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig fall on the same day.  We at the Wildlife Center of Virginia will use the inspiration of the first to strive to prevent a recurrence of the second.  You can help, by helping us succeed.