Murdered Gulf

BP really got away with one.  Who woulda thought, right? 

Published in the journal PLOS One in June, Montagna’s full analysis of his 10-year-old samples showed damage to seafloor organisms stretching across at least 124 square miles. That’s nearly two times larger than the 66-square-mile footprint described in the abbreviated report Montagna turned over for the disaster’s Natural Resource Damage Assessment.

The NRDA process helped determine how much BP owed for the harm done to marine organisms, from the little mud-dwelling creatures Montagna studied to the dead dolphins and oil-drenched pelicans that washed up on Louisiana’s shores. In April 2016, the case was settled for $8.8 billion. It was both the largest environmental settlement in the nation’s history and the biggest infusion of cash for restoration purposes the state had ever seen.

But it might have been larger had the full scope of the damage been known.

“BP got a good deal by settling early,” Montagna said.

How did they get away with it? Well one thing they did was exercise control over the scope of the research that eventually determined their liability. 

Keeping watch over every step was a BP representative.

“He asked a lot of questions, and was with us 24-7,” she said.

Company officials carefully documented each sample’s chain of custody.

“BP didn’t want anybody spiking the samples with oil,” Montagna said.

BP and Montagna “had many difficult conversations” over how to conduct the sampling. BP wanted a narrow focus, concentrating the sampling close to the well. Montagna wanted to travel farther afield, gathering cores from a wider area. Montagna won out on the scope, but not on which samples to analyze for the damage assessment. On that count, BP got its way, zooming the focus on the 58 samples taken closest to the well.

The company used that tighter scope to its advantage. In a statement in 2013, BP said the 58 samples “confirm that potential injury to the deep sea soft sediment ecosystem was limited to a small area in the immediate vicinity of the Macondo well-head.”

BP required all the samples to be kept in a locked cage in a secure, air-conditioned storage room. That is, until the settlement was reached.

“There was zero interest the next day,” Montagna said. “No one cared.”

As for the lasting environmental damage done to the sea floor, we're still learning about how bad it really is.  But, well, it's bad. 

Montagna says plenty of evidence is waiting quietly at the bottom of the Gulf. Recent check-ins by other scientists have revealed little improvement since 2010. Slow to degrade thanks to the deep sea’s cold, dark and sterile conditions, the oil remains nearly as potent as the day it soaked into the mud and formed black pools on the seafloor.

“There’s been almost zero recovery, and it’ll likely stay that way for a long, long time,” Montagna said.