Roll Call – 5 Years After BP Oil Spill, Focus on Restoration — Not Misinformation | Commentary

Commentary by Douglas J. Meffert, National Audubon Society, David Muth, National Wildlife Federation, and Steve Cochran, Environmental Defense Fund

Roll Call – April 20, 2015

It’s been five years since images of oil-soaked pelicans, dead turtles and contaminated shorelines along the Gulf Coast shocked our national consciousness. Half a decade after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded, killing 11 men and unleashing the worst marine oil spill in U.S. history, BP would like you to believe that everything is back to normal along the Gulf Coast. In reality, BP has not yet truly accepted responsibility for the enormity of the damages it caused. Its recent Gulf of Mexico Environmental Recovery and Restoration report states that “most environmental impact from the accident was limited in duration and geography, and the natural resources that were affected are rebounding.” The scientific authority on the spill – the trustees of the Natural Resource Damage Assessment, said this in response: “BP misinterprets and misapplies data while ignoring published literature that doesn’t support its claims.” In this battle of PRs – public relations vs. peer-reviewed science, we side with science.

This commentary was originally published on Roll Call. You can read the full commentary here.