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Oil Spill Research

One of EPA's top priorities is to help the nation be better prepared to respond to oil and fuel spills that threaten public health and natural ecosystems. The work supports the high-priority, immediate efforts of emergency response teams, as well as decades long monitoring of the impact of spilled oil. 

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Agency researchers and their partners are developing tools and methods to assess and remediate contamination from oil and fuel spills.  They are also researching ecological and human health impacts of spilled oils and fuels, and of agents used for cleanup activities, including dispersants, surface washing agents, and solidifiers. 

The research includes:

• Experiments to characterize the behavior, fate, and effects of various oils and products used to mitigate and clean up spills.
• Determining the toxicity of oil types to different aquatic species.
• Investigations into the effectiveness and potential impacts of oil spill dispersants, including their toxicity, physical and chemical characterization, and biodegradation properties.
• Testing emergency response and clean up protocols.

Meet EPA Researcher Robyn Conmy

Faces of EPA: Robyn Conmy  (video) – research ecologist who leads oil spill and other research at EPA's Cincinnati lab 

Robyn Conmy featured during the Oil and Water  episode  of "The Forum," a podcast produced by the Institute on Science for Global Policy.

Download a transcript of the podcast.

• the use of computational toxicology to assess the potential environmental and health impacts of dispersants;
• satellites to guide response and cleanup operations;
• developing innovative techniques using satellites and underwater sensors to detect oil when it cannot be seen.

Emergency Response Planning

The information EPA researchers learn is to support EPA regional offices, states, and others involved in oil spill emergency response planning. EPA's role in oil spills is determined by law under the federal statute through the Oil Pollution Act and the National Oil and Hazardous Substances Pollution Contingency Plan .   

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Oil spills are disasters that can have severe social, economic, and environmental impacts.

They are the release of crude oil or refined petroleum products from tankers, rigs, wells, and offshore platforms.

These spills are most common in marine environments but can also occur on land. They can have disastrous consequences for local ecosystems, and be expensive due to the loss of oil and the costs involved in their clean-up.

The number of oil spills and the quantity of oil that is spilled from tankers has fallen substantially in recent decades. 1

On this page, you can find all our data, visualizations, and writing relating to oil spills. Specifically, this refers to oil spills from tankers – container ships transporting oil – where consistent, high-quality global data is available.

But not all oil spills come from tankers. They can also come from other sites, such as offshore oil rigs and damaged pipelines. The world’s largest (and most well-known) event was Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. This disaster was caused by an explosion in a drilling rig. The US Government estimates that 4.9 million barrels of oil were released (equivalent to around 700,000 tonnes).

Tracking non-tanker oil spills is essential, but we are unaware of any global, updated databases that include this. Filling this gap would be critical to global environmental data and monitoring.

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Research discoveries from the deepwater horizon gulf oil spill.

It's been over a decade since the oil drilling rig "Deepwater Horizon" burst into flames and sank in the Gulf of Mexico.

For more than three months, 134 million gallons of oil flowed freely into the sea, before engineers were finally able to cap the well. The spill polluted 1,300 miles of coastline across five states and killed thousands of marine mammals, shore birds, and sea turtles. It remains the largest marine oil spill of all time, and one of the greatest environmental disasters in U.S. history.

But, since the spill in 2010, scientists with the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative have been studying the fate and ecological impact of the oil, and, in doing so have made significant scientific discoveries beyond the spill itself.

This video explores three of those projects and their discoveries.

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• 18 February 2022
• Correction 22 February 2022

Unprecedented oil spill catches researchers in Peru off guard

• Emiliano Rodríguez Mega

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Clean-up teams have been removing oil along the 41 kilometres of Peru’s coast hit by the 15 January spill. Credit: Musuk Nolte

A viscous, black wave rolled onto the beach of the seaside town of Ancón, Peru, just as Deyvis Huamán and his team arrived to assess the situation. Two days earlier, on 15 January, thousands of barrels of crude oil spilled from a refinery to the south of there. Heavy swells had slammed the coastline after the violent eruption of a volcano near Tonga , more than 10,300 kilometres away.

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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-00333-x

Updates & Corrections

Correction 22 February 2022 : An earlier version of this story showed on a map that the oil spill occurred along Peru’s coastline, at a refinery. Peru’s National Commission for Aerospace Research and Development (CONIDA) has confirmed that the origin point for the spill is about 4.5 kilometres offshore from the refinery, where the tanker was originally stationed.

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Developing Large-Scale Research in Response to an Oil Spill Disaster: a Case Study

Richard k. kwok.

1 Epidemiology Branch, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), NIH, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, USA

Aubrey K. Miller

2 Office of the Director, NIEHS, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA

Kaitlyn B. Gam

Matthew d. curry.

3 Social & Scientific Systems, Inc., Durham, North Carolina, USA

Steven K. Ramsey

Aaron blair.

4 Occupational and Environmental Epidemiology Branch, Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, NIH, Rockville, Maryland, USA

Lawrence S. Engel

5 Department of Epidemiology, University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA

Dale P. Sandler

Research conducted in the wake of a disaster can provide information to help mitigate health consequences, support future recovery efforts, and improve resilience. However, a number of barriers have prevented time-sensitive research responses following previous disasters. Furthermore, large-scale disasters present their own special challenges due to the number of people exposed to disaster conditions, the number of groups engaged in disaster response, and the logistical challenges of rapidly planning and implementing a large study. In this case study, we illustrate the challenges in planning and conducting a large-scale post-disaster research study by drawing on our experience in establishing the Gulf Long-term Follow-up (GuLF) Study following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster. We describe considerations in identifying at-risk populations and appropriate comparison groups, garnering support for the study from different stakeholders, obtaining timely scientific and ethics review, measuring and characterizing complex exposures, and addressing evolving community health concerns and unmet medical needs. We also describe the NIH Disaster Research Response (DR2) Program, which provides a suite of resources, including data collection tools, research protocols, institutional review board guidance, and training materials to enable the development and implementation of time-critical studies following disasters and public health emergencies. In describing our experiences related to the GuLF Study and the ongoing efforts through the NIH DR2 Program, we aim to help improve the timeliness, quality, and value of future disaster-related data collection and research studies.

Introduction

Disasters have increased in frequency and intensity and have short- and long-term effects on human health [ 1 ]. In the midst of a typical disaster response, the primary focus is on immediate needs—saving lives and preventing property and environmental damage [ 2 ]. Because of this, other health concerns may go unidentified and unaddressed until much later. Currently, information on disaster-related health effects is lacking. This may be attributable to the multiple challenges posed in studying human health risks following large-scale disasters. For example, data collection for research on health effects following the World Trade Center attack in 2001 did not begin until September 2003—a full 2 years after the disaster [ 3 ]. It took time for investigators to obtain registry funding, create a protocol, test questionnaires, and obtain institutional review board (IRB) approvals [ 4 ]. Such tasks can lead to delays in obtaining data and may limit the ability to characterize primary disaster-related exposures, fully enumerate and identify the exposed population, and study short-term health risks.

A growing list of recent US disasters (e.g., World Trade Center 2001, Hurricane Katrina 2005, Deepwater Horizon oil spill 2010, and Hurricane Harvey 2017) underscores the need for disaster research infrastructure, full disaster research integration into public health response efforts, and timely research responses [ 3 , 5 , 6 ]. The importance of researching disaster-related human health effects has been emphasized by both the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) and the National Biodefense Science Board (NBSB), who have called for the inclusion of scientific investigations as an integral component of the disaster planning, response, and recovery cycle [ 7 ]. Furthermore, leaders from the US Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), National Institutes of Health (NIH), and Centers for Disease Control have outlined the critical elements of an effective disaster research response calling for actions before, during, and after a public health emergency to ensure a robust scientific effort in improving our response to future disasters [ 8 ].

Information gained from disaster research may lead to interventions to reduce injury, illness, disability, and death and to support recovery efforts and improve resilience [ 8 – 10 ]. However, understanding and effectively addressing environmental health concerns in response to disasters depend on the collection of time-sensitive health and exposure information that is often limited, collected retrospectively, or not collected at all [ 9 , 10 ]. In addition, disaster response research efforts may require expertise from a multi-disciplinary team, such as experts in toxicology and industrial hygiene, biostatistics, exposure assessment, epidemiology, occupational and environmental medicine, behavioral and mental health, survey methodology, and community engagement. Investigators carrying out disaster research projects need to quickly identify (1) the underlying baseline distribution and determinants of disease in the affected population to help identify risk factors for adverse outcomes and causal associations; (2) efficacy of mitigation strategies; and (3) opportunities for risk communications, critical evaluations, or other interventions to benefit the health and well-being of impacted communities [ 10 , 11 ]. Furthermore, individuals involved in research response have to collaborate with or work alongside individuals involved in the public health and disaster response. Forming relationships early, before a disaster, can help investigators be better prepared to act quickly and decisively once a disaster occurs [ 8 ]. Research conducted during and after a disaster can provide actionable intelligence to policymakers, planners, incident commanders, decision-makers, and impacted community members [ 8 , 10 ].

According to Malilay et al. [ 9 ], the field of disaster epidemiology encompasses “rapid needs assessment, surveillance, tracking, research, and evaluation, executed in response to a large-scale emergency or disaster.” However, details on how to design and implement a research study in the midst of a large-scale disaster are not obvious or well specified, and many challenges exist. In this article, we share the challenges we faced while trying to quickly implement the Gulf Long-term Follow-up (GuLF) Study [ 12 , 13•• , 14 ], a prospective cohort study of workers involved in clean-up following the largest marine oil spill in US history. We also discuss steps taken to facilitate rapid implementation and strategies we employed to overcome challenges, many of which are applicable to other types of disasters.

Case Study: the GuLF Study

The deepwater horizon oil spill.

The explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig on April 20, 2010, led to the deaths of eleven workers and subsequent sinking of the vessel which damaged the wellhead and led to the uncontrolled release of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Over 200 million gallons of crude oil flowed into the Gulf of Mexico over a period of 3 months, and tens of thousands of workers and volunteers were involved in oil spill response and clean-up (OSRC) activities [ 15 ].

Crude oil is a complex mixture of known and suspected toxicants, including volatile organic compounds (VOCs), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), hydrogen sulfide, and heavy metals [ 16 ]. VOCs, particularly benzene, have been linked to lymphohematopoietic malignancies [ 17 – 21 ] and kidney dysfunction [ 22 ]. VOC exposures can also cause central nervous system (CNS) depression, respiratory irritation, and immune system alterations [ 23 – 26 ]. PAHs include known carcinogens and may alter reproductive and immune function [ 27 ]. Hydrogen sulfide can cause acute and chronic CNS effects such as headaches, poor attention span, poor memory, and poor motor function [ 28 ]. Heavy metals found in crude oil, including arsenic, cadmium, chromium, manganese, copper, nickel, vanadium, and lead, have a range of adverse health effects, including neurotoxicity and carcinogenicity, renal and cardiovascular toxicity, and immunotoxicity [ 29 – 39 ].

At the time of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, there had been little research on the long-term health effects from oil spills despite the fact that between 1970 and 2009, there were 356 spills of more than 700 tons from oil tankers, with approximately 38 of these spills affecting coastal populations [ 40 – 43 ]. Also, there were a number of key differences between the prior spills studied and the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Foremost were the sheer size and scope of the damage brought on by the disaster—which impacted over 1100 linear miles of shoreline. The release of approximately 200 million gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico was far larger than any of the other spills studied [ 15 ]. Additionally, OSRC activities spanned several states and involved an unprecedented volume of dispersants, controlled burns, and physical collection of oil and oiled materials, potentially leading to many complex exposure scenarios for OSRC workers and the residents of the surrounding communities [ 15 , 42• , 43 – 45 ]. The lack of information on some of these exposures produced considerable uncertainty and concern in the population.

The OSRC following the Deepwater Horizon disaster involved skimming and booming activities, some of which included pooling of the crude oil onto the surface where it was ignited and burned. Burning oil produces particulates and PAHs, which have adverse cardiac and respiratory effects, and may generate dioxins because of incomplete combustion in the presence of chlorine in the sea water [ 44 , 46 ]. OSRC activities also included the aerial and subsurface application of dispersants to chemically break up the oil. The dispersants used contain potential respiratory and dermal irritants, including 2-butoxyethanol, propylene glycol, and sulfonic acid salts that could lead to adverse physical health symptoms [ 47• ].

In addition to chemical exposures, the widespread social and economic disruption caused by an oil spill may also contribute to adverse mental and physical health outcomes, especially in populations with potentially increased vulnerability due to prior exposures to trauma, financial strain, or social stressors arising from previous disasters [ 48 ]. Excess prevalence of generalized anxiety disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and depressive symptoms was observed among communities affected by the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill approximately 1 year after the spill occurred [ 49 ]. Similar patterns of higher anxiety and depression scores and worse mental health were observed among communities near the 1996 Sea Empress spill [ 50 ]. The 1993 Braer spill was associated with increased somatic symptoms, anxiety, and insomnia, but not personal dysfunction or severe depression [ 51 ]. Worse mental health scores were related to proximity to the 2002 Prestige spill [ 52 ]. Individuals whose livelihood were impacted by the 2007 Hebei Spirit oil spill also suffered poor mental health outcomes [ 53 ].

At the time of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster, the 2002 Prestige and the 2007 Hebei Spirit oil spills had the largest longitudinal datasets available on human health effects. In addition to poorer mental health [ 53 – 55 ] and increased physical health symptoms [ 56 , 57 ] among residents exposed to the Hebei Sprit oil spill, analyses of urinary and hematologic biospecimens indicated negative changes in oxidative stress, hematologic parameters, and urinary metabolites [ 58 – 60 ]. Results from the Prestige oil spill also indicated decrements in mental health [ 61 , 62 ] as well as significant decrements in lung function and respiratory health both immediately after the spill and for several years afterwards [ 63 – 68 ]. Biomarker results indicated DNA damage and other genotoxic effects among those exposed [ 69 – 73 ].

The early federal response to the Deepwater Horizon disaster involved both military and civilian federal authorities focused on mitigating the impact of the oil spill. The US government response involved an immediate search and rescue mission, the establishment of a command center, the mobilization of various federal agencies such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the coast guard, and the formation of interagency coordinating committees. In late May 2010, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) was asked to perform a health hazard evaluation, largely in response to reports of the hospitalization of seven fishermen whose symptoms were initially believed to be related to exposures experienced during their involvement in OSRC activities. Other hazard assessments followed along with a voluntary rostering of clean-up workers with an eye towards potential future health research. On June 15, 2010, NIH Director Francis Collins informed Congress that he intended to commit $10 million to initiate research led by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) to investigate short- and long-term health consequences among workers and community volunteers engaged in clean-up activities surrounding the Deepwater Horizon oil spill [ 74 ]. Separately, at the request of the Secretary of the DHHS, Kathleen Sebelius, the Institute of Medicine 1 (now known as the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) and will be referred to as such) held a workshop on June 22–23, 2010, to (1) review the current knowledge about oil spills and identify research gaps; (2) consider research efforts addressing the health effects of the Deepwater Horizon disaster; (3) to communicate information concerning these risks to the public; and (4) to make suggestions for creating a monitoring and surveillance system designed to provide “actionable” information regarding emerging health risks [ 75 ]. The goal was to optimize resources to high-risk populations for treatment and to foster new approaches for the prevention of adverse health effects [ 75 ]. The workshop provided valuable perspective that was used in developing plans for the NIEHS study.

While the potential for health effects of the oil was a concern at the highest levels of the federal government, the highest priority was stopping the spill and mitigating its damage. Multi-agency committees and task forces had been convened, and it was important to ensure that research activities did not interfere with mitigation efforts. At the same time, the NIEHS research team faced intense pressure to design a study and start data collection quickly while OSRC work was ongoing—a mandate that was often at odds with the need to keep a low profile. To ensure coordination, the research team was tasked with involving many layers of governmental experts and oversight bodies in study planning as well as gaining the support and/or concurrence of government leaders for the proposed research plan. The team was also charged with addressing the health concerns of the local communities while carrying out scientifically justified hypothesis driven and peer-reviewed research. This was especially challenging given the lack of evidence for health effects of the ostensibly low levels of chemical exposures likely for OSRC workers and members of the affected communities and the wide range of symptoms and health complaints being reported by affected individuals and covered widely in the media.

The Gulf Long-Term Follow-up (GuLF) Study, led by the NIEHS, was initiated with input from federal, state, and local agencies; local academic institutions; and communities in the Gulf region. Over the summer of 2010, the NIH coordinated many multi-agency meetings involving a range of federal agencies and departments engaged in aspects of oil spill response, seeking insights on clean-up efforts and exposures to aid in study planning, as well as to seek support and concurrence with the proposed research plan. Figure 1 provides an overall timeline for the development and initiation of the study.

GuLF Study timeline and significant study events

Due to heightened concerns surrounding the potential human health impacts from the Deepwater Horizon disaster and the scale of the proposed NIEHS research response, the NIH contracted with the NAM to provide scientific peer review and potentially ongoing study oversight. The NAM convened a panel on September 22, 2010, to review the GuLF Study protocol. The panel included experts from a wide range of relevant disciplines who offered insights on population research methods, disaster research, and community engagement and suggested improvements which were incorporated into study plans [ 76 ].

Specific details on the GuLF Study design can be found elsewhere [ 12 , 13•• ]. Briefly, the GuLF Study was designed to allow prospective investigation of potential short- and long-term health effects associated with response and clean-up efforts. It was designed to address specific hypotheses generated from previous studies of oil spill exposures and, importantly, for an exposure that has not been studied in relation to long-term health outcomes, identify new exposure-related associations, and evaluate the persistence of any observed health effects. The data and the biological and environmental samples that have been collected will allow examination of a wide range of health areas of interest, including respiratory, cardiovascular, hematologic, dermatologic, neurologic, cancer, reproductive, mental health, immunologic, hepatic, and renal outcomes. GuLF Study investigators prioritized research questions based on published epidemiologic analyses following the 2002 Prestige and 2007 Hebei Spirit oil spills as well as studies of petro-chemical workers. Standardized questions and procedures were used whenever possible so that study results could be compared with those of other populations [ 77 ].

Throughout the planning effort and beyond, GuLF Study investigators held webinars for state and local agencies, community groups, and interested members of the public and met with various academic institutions; local, state, and federal officials; and community stakeholders across the Gulf region to identify their concerns and get input on the proposed study design. At the federal level, in particular, considerable effort was devoted to defining NIH’s role in the disaster response; distinguishing the planned research response from the mandated roles of other agencies engaged in rostering, surveillance, and hazard evaluation; and seeking the support of these other agencies.

Over time—including after the study started—study materials were revised to incorporate evolving information on the ORSC efforts as well as to address new concerns raised by workers, the public, and the media. For example, recurring media reports of elevated levels of benzene in the blood of some community members motivated a nested substudy examining blood levels of volatile organic and their predictors [ 78 ].

Study Development and Implementation Challenges

Even with the funding, support, and backing of the NIH Director and senior officials within HHS and other federal agencies, data collection did not begin until 11 months after the spill began [ 13•• ]. Much of this time was taken up with developing the protocol, consent forms, questionnaire, recruitment materials, test result reporting forms, and other study materials; obtaining scientific peer review and subsequent study modification; establishing collaborations with local and regional partners; developing health and mental health referral procedures and caregiving networks; and hiring and training field staff and interviewers. GuLF Study investigators worked closely with the NIEHS IRB to make sure the study conformed to expectations for human subject protections [ 14 ]. Working closely with IRB staff as the study protocol was being developed shortened the time frame for IRB review. Considerable effort was also devoted to obtaining review and authorization from the US Office of Management and Budget which claims authority under the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1980 (amended and broadened in 1995) for review and oversight of federally conducted population surveys.

Community Engagement Challenges

When conducting research in a disaster-impacted community, it is important to establish contacts with local community organizations, representative worker organizations, advocacy groups, and state and local government representatives to identify or confirm the primary health issues of concern locally and to discuss study implementation issues [ 79 ]. The groups should span the representative geographical boundaries, as well as cultural, religious, occupational, and state and local governmental entities that will serve as important links into the community [ 79 – 81 ].

As recommended during the June 2010 NAM meeting, the GuLF Study team sought to include broad input from community leaders and citizens during development of the study to enhance the scientific validity and improve investigator understanding of local concerns to help make the study more broadly relevant and beneficial to the affected communities [ 13•• , 75 ].

With that said, accomplishing this goal was challenging as the GuLF Study targeted such a large geographic area such that there was no single “community” but many different ones across the impacted areas in the region which included the 5 Gulf states—Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas [ 13•• ]. The GuLF Study cohort included participants from all walks of life, representing many segments of the population across the Gulf region. Although the GuLF Study focused on OSRC workers, it was not a typical occupational cohort. Cohort members did not represent a single or even multiple identifiable industries so there was no obvious union or industry group that represented the entire cohort. Furthermore, the cohort was not drawn to be representative of the affected Gulf state population. However, the majority of workers did come from the surrounding communities, making community concerns relevant to the study design.

In addition to the challenges of geographic size, population diversity, and time pressures, there was a great deal of distrust, frustration, and misinformation swirling throughout the region [ 13•• , 45 , 81 – 83 ]. Study-specific concerns included the sharing of participant results and data privacy [ 14 ]. Many residents were extremely angry at BP, which was the responsible party, and frustrated with what they believed to be a lack of response from the federal government to the Deepwater Horizon disaster and prior disasters in the region [ 84 , 85 ]. Concerns identified in town hall meetings and individual focus groups were wide-ranging and often contradictory. Boat owners were angry about federal regulations and limits on where and when they could fish, while others were concerned that not enough was being done by the government to monitor seafood contamination. Others complained of lack of access to health care and the lack of federal response in this regard. All of these concerns had implications for participation rates and study design.

Many in the community had also hired lawyers to sue BP for damages or were considering filing for legal remedies [ 86 ]. Others were being targeted for inclusion in class action lawsuits. We were unable to collect direct information from participants about their involvement in class action or individual lawsuits. The implications of the legal climate for study response rates and scientific validity are complex. Anecdotally, some participants refused to participate or to complete follow-up activities because of their concerns that participation may undermine their claims. On the other hand, some lawyers were encouraging their clients to participate in the study in hopes it would generate individualized or summary information to strengthen their case. Our experiences mirrored those of other settings such as the Exxon Valdez, where the adversarial legal climate was considered to be responsible for increased psychosocial impacts, intra-community conflict, and a sense of intrusion and loss of privacy thus potentially leading to low response rates and for the difficulty of investigators to carry out long-term follow-up of exposed groups [ 87 – 89 ].

Community Engagement

The GuLF Study investigators embraced recommendations for community engagement through extensive outreach efforts to apprise the community of study activities and maximize transparency. A multi-faceted approach included in-person meetings across the Gulf region; webinars; teleconferences; social media postings; attendance at community events; public service announcements; newspaper, radio and TV campaigns to spread the message about joining the study; meetings with health officials; and even mass mailings to individuals residing in impacted communities. Additionally, we secured endorsements from local celebrities by having them record public service announcements for use in mass media campaigns within the local communities to promote participation and enroll a more representative sample of those involved in OSRC efforts. The abbreviated time frame and massive scale of the study, however, precluded the GuLF Study investigators from pursuing formal community engagement in the form of a community-based participatory research model which had been recommended by some groups involved in the initial study peer review [ 76 ].

The value of these community outreach efforts cannot be overstated, as incorporating the feedback from the meetings with state and local health department and community representatives led to several modifications in the study protocol and questionnaire. For example, based on feedback from community members and key informants, the questionnaire was revised to (1) better define labor categories, (2) better characterize definitions of exposure,(3) improve the workers’ ability to recall important dates in their clean-up work history, and (4) include or expand questions about the symptoms of greatest concern to the workers and affected community members. Additionally, discussions with OSRC workers provided critical insight into the processes and procedures occurring at worksites to which study investigators could not gain access. The questionnaires were revised to better reflect “real-world” scenarios rather than idealized protocols established by BP and Federal agencies that may not have been practical to employ in the field.

Privacy and Transparency

GuLF Study investigators tried to be as transparent as possible and to appear neutral and independent. All GuLF Study protocols and questionnaires were posted online and publicly accessible. Written peer review and responses were also made publicly available. Data privacy concerns were addressed in study materials and through the use of a federal Certificate of Confidentiality (CoC). Although no longer required for NIH-funded health research under the 21st Century Cures Act passed by Congress in 2016, the CoC helps protect against disclosures of study-related information by federal, state, or local civil, criminal, administrative, legislative, or other proceedings [ 90 , 91 ]. Although it does not guarantee that data would never be released, it creates legal hurdles that must be cleared before an order to release data can be issued [ 91 ]. The GuLF Study investigators established procedures to share summary study results with participants, community groups, and state and local health officials as the study progressed. A community advisory board was also established to provide oversight and advice; community representatives are also included on the study’s scientific advisory board.

As may be the case following other disasters, there was no central list of persons involved in OSRC activities [ 9 ]. BP contracted with multiple companies to provide needed staff for various OSRC-related efforts. The percentage of OSRC workers that were on the BP payroll was very small. Other workers came from federal and local agencies that maintained their own lists of workers. As noted above, rapid needs assessment and rostering were prioritized as part of the government’s response following the Deepwater Horizon disaster. As part of this effort, the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) developed a voluntary roster to potentially track OSRC workers by targeting individuals who had just completed mandatory safety training, but before they were assigned to or hired by a specific contractor for clean-up work. Since this OSRC population came from all over the country and was highly mobile, this effort helped larger-scale epidemiologic investigations such as the GuLF Study get established.

The NIOSH roster, worker lists from federal agencies like the coast guard and US Fish and Wildlife Service, and databases tracking completion of NIEHS-developed safety training courses and logging entrance and exits from OSRC worksites were used to develop a master list of names and contact information that was used to enroll individuals into the study. However, because many of these lists were developed for purposes other than future research, key information for contacting workers was often missing, inconsistent, incomplete, or out of date by the time it was needed. Some individuals were on more than one list, but because of incomplete information, it was not always possible to rule out duplicates. Thus, getting an accurate count of how many people were involved in the OSRC was not possible, and different estimates of the workforce size have been reported [ 13•• , 15 ].

Despite efforts to identify all of the OSRC workers, there were still subgroups missing. Many of the BP employees were not rostered, primarily because they had their own safety training programs and did not badge into clean-up sites at the same locations as other more short-term workers. The names and contact information for BP employees were not made available to the research team. While attempting to obtain contact information for some of these workers, study investigators discovered that workers at the wellhead, where oil exposures were expected to be highest, were not included in the initial rostering efforts and therefore would be left out of the study. An incidental encounter led to the discovery that these potentially highly exposed workers were transported by helicopter to the oil rigs. Therefore, arrangements were made to set up a recruitment kiosk at the main heliport where these workers were transported (Houma, Louisiana) to recruit and enroll these individuals.

While many individuals provided telephone numbers, some of those were mobile numbers linked to “disposable” cell phones, as was the case post-Hurricane Katrina where residents were found to use “disposable” cell phones only as funds were available. In other cases, multiple workers provided the same contact number—either a single worker with a phone or a number from a boarding house. As such, extensive tracing and locating operations were necessary to reach some study participants. Merging contact information from the study master list with the automated batch tracing databases, such as LexisNexis Accurint and National Change of Address, was often necessary to locate participants.

Future rostering efforts should proactively advocate for a centralized effort with robust contact information for all individual as well as secondary contacts who would know how to get in touch with the individual. The collection of social security numbers (or at least the last 4 digits) would facilitate tracking in large centralized databases such as mortality and cancer registries although this would be problematic in the case of undocumented workers. Efforts by investigators following the World Trade Center attack highlight the importance of establishing a roster quickly as the opportunity to collect this information is limited [ 92 ].

Gatekeepers

During the initial peer review, we were strongly advised to work through local community gatekeepers, especially for engaging specific racial/ethnic subgroups of the worker population such as Vietnamese fishermen and other non-English-speaking groups. For some groups, there was no single organization that represented the entire subpopulation of interest, and competing organizations vied to become the focal point of recruitment efforts. Many of the local community service organizations wanted to use their own staff to recruit participants from their communities and even to conduct study interviews. To maintain needed standardization and quality control over the study protocol, however, a more centralized approach was needed. Rather than contracting with multiple small local organizations that served unique population subgroups, research staff were centrally hired and managed but recruited from the local communities in the Gulf of Mexico when feasible. For example, local examiners were hired to carry out in-home and clinic exams.

Balancing between being responsive to community feedback while also following a standardized protocol requires nimbleness and diplomacy to find solutions that foster trust and relationships between the study staff and the community. The ongoing community engagement was important for identifying previously unrecognized health concerns in the affected communities and for increasing the scientific validity of the study by increasing trust and study participation.

Telephone Administration

Because of the need to enroll large numbers of participants quickly and the fact that many workers were no longer in the area by the time the study started, initial enrollment and data collection were done through telephone interviews. We were advised that the diversity of the worker population, especially in the Gulf states, might require an in-person approach. While there were challenges to carrying out telephone interviews with a very mobile population that primarily used cell phones, often without long-term coverage plans, we were able to enroll a diverse cohort, and response rates did not vary substantially by race. A number of Vietnamese fishermen who spoke only Vietnamese took part in clean-up efforts. Most of these were not born in the USA and had little formal education. Reviewers were especially concerned about this subgroup and recommended that we work with community gatekeepers to reach this population. However, a lack of resources and time to devote to developing a tailored strategy for including them kept us targeting this subgroup at the time the rest of the cohort was being enrolled. Our inability to identify a single authority for this group and the unwillingness of the community groups that served the Vietnamese to merely pass on contact information led to a decision to try our centralized telephone approach using Vietnamese-speaking interviewers. Although we preemptively simplified the questionnaire out of concern for concepts that could not be easily translated, we were able to enroll 41% of the Vietnamese-only-speaking persons we had identified from our master list.

Participant Benefits

Input obtained from focus groups and community meetings provided GuLF Study investigators with a better understanding of local barriers to recruitment and enrollment as well as insights useful for identifying strategies designed to overcome these barriers and make it less cumbersome for individuals to participate. Based on feedback from community meetings, the protocol was modified to provide participants with beneficial health information at each encounter. For example, GuLF Study investigators worked with NIEHS-funded community groups to develop easy to understand individual-level reports to return participant results from clinical tests and medical examinations such as blood pressure levels, pulmonary function results, height, weight, body mass index, and urine glucose levels. These reports detailed the normal range of values for each test result along with the information on whether additional medical input might be needed.

For the subset of cohort members participating in a substudy focused on measurement of current levels of chemicals in blood, reports included easy to read graphics of individual participant’s results compared with a nationally representative sample from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). Summary findings from the GuLF Study are provided via newsletters and are posted on the study website [ 93 ]. Study staff also worked to better tailor messages to participants about the purpose of the study, the importance of their participation, and benefits of participation.

Remuneration

Another strong recommendation from the NAM review, other peer reviewers, and community groups was that participants should be compensated for their time [ 76 ]. There was no agreement on how much money was appropriate and on what level of compensation would be considered coercive. While the NIH IRB does allow for small, non-coercive financial remuneration, the size of the study precluded offering compensation at the outset. We have no way to know if our response would have been better had we offered payment for completion of the telephone interview. Compensation at other stages of the study—for example, the home and clinic visits— did appear to be helpful but there was no time to formally study the value of these efforts for the telephone interview. Other efforts, such as adding low-level remuneration or drawings for non-responders or for completion of special tasks (e.g., medical record authorization or extra blood sample) had modest success.

During community meetings, it was noted that there was a high prevalence of chronic disease and limited access to health care in the Gulf Region. We found that 49.4% of the GULF Study participants were uninsured and 37.4% did not have a primary care doctor. In addition to the sharing of test results, community groups advocated medical referrals for those in need. While providing health care is beyond the mandate of the NIH, GuLF Study staff worked to enhance access to existing health care services, especially those that were available based on a sliding fee scale, as needed.

GuLF Study investigators worked with federal partners to expand the health care provider referral network to include federally qualified low-or no-cost health care options. Lists of local federally qualified medical and mental health care providers were developed based on input from state and local health care officials, the Health Resources Services Administration (HRSA), the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), and GuLF Study community advisors. Resources varied by state, and there were fewer resources for mental health care or specialty care such as occupational medicine than for primary medical care. The resulting lists were used to offer referral information to participants who had abnormal exam findings or other health concerns. Of the 32,608 enrolled participants, 11,193 completed a home exam which included measurement of blood pressure levels, pulmonary function tests, height, weight, body mass index (BMI), and urinary glucose level measurements [ 13•• ]. The most common abnormal findings detected were elevated BMI, urinary glucose, and blood pressure above the normal range and decrements in lung function tests ( Table 1 ). Following or during the home exam, 947 (8.5%) participants requested and received information on medical resources, and 877 (7.8%) received referrals. Mental health needs accounted for 10% of referrals. Mental health referrals were given if participants exhibited signs of distress or upon request during the home visit. During the subsequent clinic exam, we scored responses to depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and anxiety scales in real time and referred participants to clinics in their area as needed. Arrangements were also made to have ready access to poison control centers (for inquiries about chemical exposures), especially when results from chemical testing were mailed, and to suicide prevention hotlines throughout the study. Of all of the home exams conducted, study managers attended to 42(0.4%) critical health issues that resulted in calls to 911 or referrals to suicide prevention hotlines.

Abnormal clinical findings and referrals in the GuLF Study home visit exams 2011–2013

Characterizing Exposures

Many earlier studies based individual level exposure assessment on proximity to the oil spill and/or hours or days of clean-up work performed. These measures would typically be available in other disaster scenarios. For the GuLF Study, we devoted significant resources to developing comprehensive individualized exposure estimates [ 16 , 94 – 99 ]. This work involved collecting extensive information from participants about their work experiences during the response and clean-up and incorporating information from exposure monitoring that had been carried out by BP and their contractors during the spill. Although both BP and other agencies that conducted exposure monitoring were very forthcoming in sharing data, the monitoring that was done was to ensure that exposures did not exceed predetermined occupational thresholds rather than for the purpose of future research on health effects at various exposure levels. Thus, monitoring may not have reflected all OSRC work scenarios, and the reported limits of detection were not originally set to capture the lower-level exposures that many workers experienced. As reported elsewhere, it was necessary to recalibrate much of the monitoring data before developing exposure metrics to characterize individual OSRC jobs and tasks [ 16 ].

We had originally hoped to identify the location of the individual based on their badging in and out of their worksites. Unfortunately, some of the badging stations served such a wide geographic area that the information was not useful to pinpoint an exact location. For example, a badging station at a marina was used to record individuals coming in and out of the marina. However, there was not a record of where the boats leaving the marina went, leaving us with incomplete information. Additionally, the boats could be out at sea for several days at a time and return to a different marina with different personnel, leaving only partial badging information for study investigators to attempt to piece together.

Early on, we were encouraged to keep a low profile and not interfere with clean-up efforts. Because of the need to get into the field quickly and our inability to visit many of the worksites before the study was launched, some of our information about what was done during the OSRC was incomplete or incorrect. Questionnaires were modified as new information was obtained. However, there were still some instances where the questions we asked did not reflect what was actually done, leading to some potential misclassification or difficulty distinguishing some exposure patterns.

A common concern raised during peer review and in commentaries about the oil spill was that because most of the clean-up work had ended before participants were enrolled, we were unable to collect environmental and biological samples needed to measure exposures [ 100 , 101 ]. However, given the volatile nature of the VOC’s and the day to day variation in jobs and tasks, it is not clear that collecting a single biological sample from participants during clean-up would have allowed us to better characterize exposures. While such samples could have been useful for small validation efforts, the job-exposure matrices we were able to develop allow us to characterize exposures much more completely than has been done before and hopefully serve as a model for future efforts [ 16 ].

Comparison Groups

A frequent recommendation from peer reviewers was that we consider adding an unexposed comparison group from outside the affected region. The GuLF Study includes workers with a range of exposures as well as individuals who completed safety training but were not ultimately hired. This latter group generally comes from the same affected communities so, in theory, makes an appropriate comparison group for exposed workers although they were not entirely unexposed because of living in the region. However, it is possible that some were not hired because of various issues including poor health. There is some evidence of a healthy worker effect in the GuLF Study [ 47 , 102 , 103 ]. On the other hand, both workers and non-workers residing in the Gulf states would have been residentially exposed to the effects of the oil spill and have experienced the same media coverage that could have exacerbated mental health concerns [ 104 ]. Non-workers from the Gulf region may have experienced spill-related unemployment that was somewhat alleviated for those who were hired, even in the short-term, for OSRC work. Some reviewers suggested including a “similar” but distant community or individuals residing in the same state but further from the Gulf as a comparison population. However, the affected communities were likely to differ in many key ways from distant or out-of-state communities, and no perfect solution was found. Many of the GuLF Study analyses focus only on the workers, with low- or unexposed OSRC workers serving as controls for those with higher OSRC exposures. Choosing appropriate comparison groups is likely to be a challenge in other disaster scenarios.

The NIH Disaster Research Response Program

Based in part on the experiences of the GuLF Study, the NIEHS adopted a forward-leaning approach towards the development, support, and promotion of disaster science in response to disasters and other emerging threats. In 2013, the NIEHS, in collaboration with the National Library of Medicine, led the development of a pilot project which grew into the NIH Disaster Research Response (DR2) Program [ 10 ].

The DR2 Program provides data collection tools, research protocols, IRB guidance, and training materials to advance timely research in response to disasters and other public health emergencies. These readily available tools and resources as well as information on trained investigators and funding sources are intended to enhance disaster-related research response. There are currently over 350 research protocols and data collection tools available on the continually expanding and publicly available DR2 website ( https://dr2.nlm.nih.gov ).

As part of DR2 efforts, NIEHS has held training workshops in Los Angeles (2014), Houston (2015), Boston (2016), and Tucson (2019) to better prepare stakeholders to work together on the development and implementation of disaster-related data collection and research. Of note, the workshop held in Houston in 2015 focused on a hurricane scenario hitting the Houston metropolitan area. When Hurricane Harvey hit Houston in August 2017, academic institutions in the area and across the USA quickly banded together in partnership with local public health officials and impacted communities to quickly form research collaborations utilizing pre-approved DR2 protocols and other resources from the NIH DR2 repository [ 105 , 106 ].

Implementing a large-scale research study under time restrictions is challenging and resource intensive. Key decisions made under time pressures inherent to disaster response and with missing, incomplete, or erroneous information may threaten data quality and validity. The need to balance research aims with health care needs in under-served populations is an ongoing challenge that requires establishing clear expectations for researchers and health agencies from the start. In the GuLF Study, the number of abnormal test results and requests for medical referrals exceeded our expectations, resulting in increased staffing time and efforts to support effective health care referrals. Despite our best efforts, some participants remained frustrated that they did not receive health care for problems they attributed to the oil spill.

A key aspect to designing the GuLF Study was the establishment of community partners and other key stakeholders that helped investigators understand community issues that might affect study success. In turn, epidemiologic studies can provide critical details to key stakeholders during a disaster and contribute to a better understanding of the risks and hazards involved. This information can be used to provide information to optimize resource allocation and develop policies and procedures such as the use of personal protective equipment when encountering known hazards and recommendations on the duration of work shifts to minimize morbidity and mortality for future disasters.

Following a disaster, surveillance systems may be put in place to collect a variety of information to provide actionable intelligence to decision-makers or decision-makers may rely on surveillance systems already in place, as was the case following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. However, small to modest revisions of usual data collection efforts may provide more useable information for the benefit of both short- and long-term health studies. Furthermore, broader efforts to characterize populations at greater risk for disasters, before disaster strikes, will provide information that is needed to determine if, for example, spikes in health care utilization following a disaster are real.

Experiences in establishing the GuLF Study can be used as a template in future disaster scenarios to identify the population at risk and work with community partners and local stakeholders and IRBs to address important issues of scientific and community concern. It is vital that ongoing efforts maximize the use of validated data collection approaches and tools to ensure that results can be most useful in informing preparedness, response, and recovery efforts for future situations. Using resources established under such initiatives as the NIH DR2 Program will help investigators be better prepared to quickly respond to future disasters with standardized methods and questionnaires that will provide both “actionable intelligence” and improve public health.

Funding Information

The GuLF Study was funded by the NIH Common Fund and the Intramural Research Program of the NIH, National Institute of Environmental Sciences (ZIA ES102945).

This article is part of the Topical Collection on Environmental Disasters

Conflict of Interest Aubrey K. Miller and Dale P. Sandler are section editors for Current Environmental Health Reports . All other authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent Human studies ethics approval was granted by the Institutional Review Board of the National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences.

Publisher’s Note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

1 The Institute of Medicine (IOM) was renamed in 2015 as the National Academy of Medicine (NAM). It is one of three academies that make up the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (the National Academies) in the USA.

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Oil and Chemical Spill Research Publications

Scientists from the Emergency Response Division (ERD) of NOAA's Office of Response and Restoration frequently conduct research on oil and chemical spill topics, both within NOAA and with other agencies and partners. Below is a sampling of their publications, grouped by year. To find more of ERD's scientific publications, you may want to check these sources:

• Catalogs of the NOAA Seattle Library and the NOAA Central Library . (NOAA has a network of over 30 libraries across the nation.)
• Bibliographies created by NOAA, such as the oil spills bibliography [PDF, 2.2 MB] and the Deepwater Horizon bibliography .
• Google Scholar , a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature.
• Proceedings of the International Oil Spill Conference (IOSC).
• Where to Find OR&R and other NOAA Information on the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

Zengel, S., Rutherford, N., Bernik, B.M., Weaver, J., Zhang, M., Nixon, Z., and Michel, J. 2021. Planting after shoreline cleanup treatment improves salt marsh vegetation recovery following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill . Ecological Engineering, Volume 169, 106288.

Westerholm, D., Ainsworth, C., Barker, C., Brewer, P., Farrington, J., Justić, D., Kourafalou, V., Murawski, S., Shepherd, J., and Solo-Gabriele, H. 2021. Preparedness, Planning, and Advances in Operational Response . Oceanography, 34(1), 212-227. 

Manning, J.; Verfaillie, M.; Barker, C.; Berg, C.; MacFadyen, A.; Donnellan, M.; Everett, M.; Graham, C.; Roe, J.; Kinner, N. Responder Needs Addressed by Arctic Maritime Oil Spill Modeling . J. Mar. Sci. Eng. 2021, 9, 201.

Simecek-Beatty, D. and W. J. Lehr. 2021. Oil spill forecast assessment using Fractions Skill Score , Marine Pollution Bulletin, Volume 164.

Barker, C.H.; Kourafalou, V.H.; Beegle-Krause, C.; Boufadel, M.; Bourassa, M.A.; Buschang, S.G.; Androulidakis, Y.; Chassignet, E.P.; Dagestad, K.-F.; Danmeier, D.G.; Dissanayake, A.L.; Galt, J.A.; Jacobs, G.; Marcotte, G.; Özgökmen, T.; Pinardi, N.; Schiller, R.V.; Socolofsky, S.A.; Thrift-Viveros, D.; Zelenke, B.; Zhang, A.; Zheng, Y. Progress in Operational Modeling in Support of Oil Spill Response . J. Mar. Sci. Eng. 2020, 8, 668.

Stacy, B. A., B. P. Wallace, T. Brosnan, S. M. Wissmann, B. A. Schroeder, A. M. Lauritsen, R. F. Hardy, J. L. Keene, and S. A. Hargrove. 2019. Guidelines for Oil Spill Response and National Resource Damage Assessment: Sea Turtles . U.S. Department of Commerce, National Marine Fisheries Service and National Ocean Service, NOAA Technical Memorandum NMFS-OPR-61, 197 p.

Simecek-Beatty, D., Lehr, W. J., 2017. Extended oil spill spreading with Langmuir circulation. Mar. Pollut. Bull. 122, 226–235.

Bejarano, A.C., Farr, J.K., Jenne, P., Chu, V. and Hielscher, A. (2016), The Chemical Aquatic Fate and Effects database (CAFE), a tool that supports assessments of chemical spills in aquatic environments. Environ Toxicol Chem, 35: 1576–1586. doi:10.1002/etc.3289

Bejarano, A.C. and A.J. Mearns. 2015. Improving environmental assessments by integrating Species Sensitivity Distributions into Environmental Modeling: Examples with Two Hypothetical Oil Spills . Marine Pollution Bulletin 93 (2015): 172-182.

Helton, Doug. 2015. Between the Spills: NOAA's efforts to mitigate coastal hazards . The Coast Guard Journal of Safety & Security at Sea: Proceedings of the Marine Safety & Security Council. Spring 2015. 48-51.

Nixon, Z. and J. Michel. 2015. Predictive Modeling of Subsurface Shoreline Oil Encounter Probability from the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill in Prince William Sound, Alaska. Environmental Science & Technology, 49: 4354-4361.

Thrift-Viveros, D.L., R. Jones, and M. Boufadel. 2015. Development of a New Oil Biodegradation Algorithm for NOAA's Oil Spill Modelling Suite (GNOME/ADIOS). In: AMOP 2015 Proceedings, Vancouver, B.C., Canada, June 2-4, 2015. Ottawa, Ont.: Environment Canada. (In press)

Zengel, S., B.M. Bernik, N. Rutherford, Z. Nixon, and J. Michel. 2015. Heavily Oiled Salt Marsh Following the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, Ecological Comparisons of Shoreline Cleanup Treatments and Recovery. PLOS ONE, 10.

Barker, C.H. (2014) Subsurface Oil and Waves in the Coastal Zone. International Oil Spill Conference Proceedings: May 2014, Vol. 2014, No. 1, pp. 300025.

Bejarano, A.C. and M.G. Barron. (2014) Development and Practical Application of Petroleum and Dispersant Interspecies Correlation Models for Aquatic Species. Environmental Science & Technology, 48, 4564-4572.

Bejarano, A.C., V. Chu, J. Dahlin, J. Farr. (2014) Development and Application of Dtox: A Quantitative Database of the Toxicity of Dispersants and Chemically Dispersed Oil. International Oil Spill Conference Proceedings: May 2014, Vol. 2014, No. 1, pp. 733-746.

Bejarano, A.C., J.R. Clark, G.M. Coelho. (2014) Issues and Challenges with Oil Toxicity Data and Implications for Their Use in Decision Making: A Quantitative Review. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, 33, 732-742.

Benggio, B., K. Chesteen, J. DeSantis, R. Knudsen, and J. Slaughter. (2014) Tidal Inlet Protection Strategies for Oil Spill Response; Concepts, Testing, and Considerations. International Oil Spill Conference Proceedings: May 2014, Vol. 2014, No. 1, pp. 287225.

Benggio, B., D. Scholz, D. Anderson, J. Dillon, G. Masson, L. Nelson, D. Odess, and E. Petras. (2014) Addressing the Uncertainty and Requirements for Oil Spill Response Consultations. International Oil Spill Conference Proceedings: May 2014, Vol. 2014, No. 1, pp. 1881-1898.

Conmy, R.N., P.G. Coble, J. Farr, A.M. Wood, K. Lee, W.S. Pegau, I.D. Walsh, C.R. Koch, M.I. Abercrombie, M.S. Miles, M.R. Lewis, S.A. Ryan, B.J. Robinson, T.L. King, C.R. Kelble, and J. Lacoste, J. (2014) Submersible Optical Sensors Exposed to Chemically Dispersed Crude Oil: Wave Tank Simulations for Improved Oil Spill Monitoring. Environmental Science & Technology, 48, 1803-1810.

Drury, A., G. Shigenaka, and M. Toy. (2014) Washington State Case Study and Guidance Developed on the Closing and Re-Opening of a Shellfishery Due to Oil Contamination. International Oil Spill Conference Proceedings, 2014, 2273-2287.

Fukuyama, A.K., G. Shigenaka, and D.A. Coats. (2014) Status of Intertidal Infaunal Communities Following the Exxon Valdez Oil Crossmark Spill in Prince William Sound, Alaska. Marine Pollution Bulletin, 84, 56-69.

Jellison, K., L. Hannah, and J.B. Huyett. (2014) Hurricane Isaac Data Management Lessons Learned and Subsequent Plan Development. International Oil Spill Conference Proceedings: May 2014, Vol. 2014, No. 1, pp. 1029-1040.

Lehr, W. (2014) Communicating Study Results of Scientific Teams in Large Spills. International Oil Spill Conference Proceedings: May 2014, Vol. 2014, No. 1, pp. 1141-1148.

Levine, E., J. Tarpley, A. Drury, K. Jellison, and J. Lomnicky. 2014. Development of the NOAA Scientific Support Coordinator Training Guidebook. International Oil Spill Conference Proceedings: May 2014, Vol. 2014, No. 1, pp. 1899-1909.

MacFadyen, A., E. Wei, C. Warren, C. Henry, and G. Watabayashi. 2014. Utilization of the Northern Gulf Operational Forecast System to Predict Trajectories of Surface Oil from a Persistent Source Offshore of the Mississippi River Delta. International Oil Spill Conference Proceedings: May 2014, Vol. 2014, No. 1, pp. 531-543.

Mearns, A.J., D.J. Reish, P.S. Oshida, T. Ginn, M.A. Remple-Hester, C. Arthur, and N. Rutherford. 2014. Effects of Pollution on Marine Organisms. (annual literature review). Water Environment Research 86(10): 1869‐1954.

Mearns, A.J., G. Shigenaka, B. Meyer, and A. Drury. 2014. Contamination and Recovery of Commercially-reared Mussels Exposed to Diesel Fuel from a Sunken Fishing Vessel. 1686 - 1705 In: Proceedings of the 2014 International Oil Spill Conference , Savannah, GA, May 5-8, 2014.

Michel, J., Z. Nixon, W. Holton, M. White, S. Zengel, F. Csulak, N. Rutherford, and C. Childs, 2014. Three Years of Shoreline Cleanup Assessment Technique (SCAT) for the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, Gulf of Mexico, USA. International Oil Spill Conference Proceedings: May 2014, Vol. 2014, No. 1, pp. 1251-1266.

Michel, J. and N. Rutherford. 2014. Impacts, Recovery Rates, and Treatment Options for Spilled Oil in Marshes. Marine Pollution Bulletin, 82, 19-25.

Preble, K. and B. Benggio. 2014. Managing the Resource Consultation Process: A Case Study from the Jireh Grounding Response. International Oil Spill Conference Proceedings: May 2014, Vol. 2014, No. 1, pp. 686-696.

Rosiu, C., S. Lehmann, D. Sherry, W. Briggs, and P. Blanchard. 2014. When Oil Is the Lesser of Two Evils: Comparative Risk of the Shipwreck Empire Knight . International Oil Spill Conference Proceedings: May 2014, Vol. 2014, No. 1, pp. 299468.

Stout, J. and J. Rubini. 2014. National Contingency Plan Phase II Activities: A Problem Analysis & Decision Framework for Understanding & Evaluating Oil Pollution Threats from Sunken Ships Off California. International Oil Spill Conference Proceedings: May 2014, Vol. 2014, No. 1, pp. 2134-2145.

Tarpley, J., A. Drury, and D. Helton, 2014. Implementing Lessons Learned for NOAA's Emergency Response Division. International Oil Spill Conference Proceedings: May 2014, Vol. 2014, No. 1, pp. 1420-1430.

Tarpley, J., J. Michel, S. Zengel, N. Rutherford, C. Childs, and F. Csulak. 2014. Best Practices for Shoreline Cleanup and Assessment Technique (SCAT) from Recent Incidents. International Oil Spill Conference Proceedings: May 2014, Vol. 2014, No. 1, pp. 1281-1297.

Warren, C.J., A. MacFadyen, and C. Henry. 2014. Mapping Oil for the Destroyed Taylor Energy Site in the Gulf of Mexico. International Oil Spill Conference Proceedings: May 2014, Vol. 2014, No. 1, pp. 299931.

Whelan, A., J. Clark, G. Andrew, J. Michel, and B. Benggio. 2014. Developing Cleanup Endpoints for Inland Oil Spills. International Oil Spill Conference Proceedings: May 2014, Vol. 2014, No. 1, pp. 1267-1280.

Bejarano, A.C., J.K. Farr. 2013. Development of short acute exposure hazard estimates: A tool for assessing the effects of chemical spills in aquatic environments [PDF, 1.35 MB]. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry 32, 1918-1927.

Bejarano, A., E. Levine, and A. Mearns. 2013. Effectiveness and Potental Ecological Effects of Offshore Surface Dispersant Use during the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill: A Retrospective Analysis of Monitoring Data. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment. 185:10281-10295. DOI 10.1007/s10661-013-3332-y.

Gorman, D., J. Farr, R. Bellair, W. Freeman, D. Frurip, A. Hielscher, H. Johnstone, M. Linke, P. Murphy, M. Sheng, K. van Gelder, and D. Viveros. 2013. Enhanced NOAA chemical reactivity worksheet for determining chemical compatibility. Proc. Safety Prog. doi: 10.1002/prs.11613.

Jones, R., W. Lehr, D. Simecek-Beatty, R. Michael Reynolds. 2013. ALOHA ® (Areal Locations of Hazardous Atmospheres) 5.4.4: Technical Documentation [PDF, 1.3 MB]. U.S. Dept. of Commerce, NOAA Technical Memorandum NOS OR&R 43. Seattle, WA: Emergency Response Division, NOAA. 96 pp.

Mearns, A. J., D.J. Reish, P.S. Oshida, T. Ginn, M.A. Rempel-Hester, C. Arthur, and N. Rutherford. 2013. Effects of Pollution on Marine Organisms (annual literature review). Water Environment Research 85(10): 1828-1933.

Lehr, W. and D. Schmidt-Etkin. 2012. Ecological Risk Assessment Modeling in Spill Response Decisions. Proceedings of the Thirty-fifth Arctic and Marine Oilspill Program (AMOP) Technical Seminar. Emergencies Science Division, Environment Canada, Ottawa, ON, Canada.

Leifer, I., B. Lehr, D. Simecek-Beatty, E. Bradley, R. Clark, P. Dennison, Y. Hu, S. Matheson, C. Jones, B. Holt, M. Reif, D. Roberts, J. Svejkovsky, G. Swayze, J. Wozencraft. 2012. State of the art satellite and airborne marine oil spill remote sensing: Application to the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Remote Sensing of the Environment, vol. 124. pp. 185-209.

Levine, E., A. Mearns, G. Shigenaka, S. Miles, A. Bejarano, B. Magdasy, and K. Bond. 2012. Review of SMART Data For Aerial Dispersant Operations. Report to the Federal On-Scene Coordinator, Deepwater Horizon MC 252.

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Oil spills: impacts and perspectives of treatment technologies with focus on the use of green surfactants

• Published: 04 February 2022
• Volume 194 , article number  143 , ( 2022 )

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• Ivison A. Silva 1 , 2 ,
• Fabíola C. G. Almeida 2 ,
• Thaís C. Souza 2 , 3 ,
• Káren G. O. Bezerra 1 , 2 ,
• Italo J. B. Durval 1 , 2 ,
• Attilio Converti 2 , 5 &
• Leonie A. Sarubbo   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-4746-0560 2 , 4  

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Oil spills into the oceans cause irreparable damage to marine life and harms the coastal population of the affected areas. The main measures to be taken in response to an oil spill are to reduce the impact on marine life, prevent oil from reaching the shore through its recovery, and accelerate the degradation of unrecovered oil. Any environmental damage can be reduced if the spilled oil is removed from the water quickly and efficiently. Therefore, it is essential to know the treatment strategies for spilled oils. Several technologies are currently available, including booms, skimmers, in situ burning, use of adsorbents, dispersants/surfactants, and bioremediation. The selection of the type of treatment will depend not only on the effectiveness of the technique, but mainly on the type of oil, amount spilled, location, weather, and sea conditions. In this review, the characteristics of oil spills, their origin, destination, and impacts caused, including major accidents around the world, are initially addressed. Then, the main physical, chemical, and biological treatment technologies are presented, describing their advances, advantages, and drawbacks, with a focus on the use of green surfactants. These agents will be described in detail, showing the evolution of research, recent studies, patents, and commercialized products. Finally, the challenges that remain due to spills, the necessary actions, and the prospects for the development of existing treatment technologies are discussed, which must be linked to the use of combined techniques.

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This study was funded by the Research and Development Program from National Agency of Electrical Energy (ANEEL). This work was also supported by the Foundation for the Support of Science and Technology of the State of Pernambuco (FACEPE), the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), and the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Level Education Personnel (CAPES, Finance Code 001).

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Silva, I.A., Almeida, F.C.G., Souza, T.C. et al. Oil spills: impacts and perspectives of treatment technologies with focus on the use of green surfactants. Environ Monit Assess 194 , 143 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-022-09813-z

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Find even more resources on oil spills  in our searchable resource database.

Oil is an ancient fossil fuel that we use to heat our homes, generate electricity, and power large sectors of our economy. But when oil accidentally spills into the ocean, it can cause big problems. Oil spills can harm sea creatures, ruin a day at the beach, and make seafood unsafe to eat. It takes sound science to clean up the oil, measure the impacts of pollution, and help the ocean recover.

Juvenile Kemp's ridley sea turtle oiled in the Deepwater Horizon spill in 2010. (Image credit: Blair Witherington/Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission)

What is oil?

Crude oil, the liquid remains of ancient plants and animals, is a fossil fuel that is used to make a wide range of fuels and products. Oil is found below ground or below the ocean floor in reservoirs , where oil droplets reside in “pores” or holes in the rock. After drilling down and pumping out the crude oil, oil companies transport it by pipes, ships, trucks, or trains to processing plants called refineries . There it is refined so it can be made into different petroleum products, including gasoline and other fuels as well as products like asphalt, plastics, soaps, and paints.

In the decades that NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration has been providing scientific support for responses to oil and chemical spills, scientists have developed a trove of specialized tools to help them do their work, including an oil spill trajectory model. This model helps estimate how spilled oil will move on the water and how it will weather or change. 

How do oil spills happen?

Oil spills are more common than you might think, and they happen in many different ways. Thousands of oil spills occur in U.S. waters each year. Most of these spills are small, for example when oil spills while refueling a ship. But these spills can still cause damage, especially if they happen in sensitive environments, like beaches, mangroves, and wetlands.

Large oil spills are major, dangerous disasters. These tend to happen when pipelines break, big oil tanker ships sink, or drilling operations go wrong. Consequences to ecosystems and economies can be felt for decades following a large oil spill.

Where do oil spills happen?

Oil spills can happen anywhere oil is drilled, transported, or used. When oil spills happen in the ocean, in the Great Lakes, on the shore, or in rivers that flow into these coastal waters, NOAA experts may get involved. The Office of Response and Restoration’s mission is to develop scientific solutions to keep the coasts clean from threats of oil, chemicals, and marine debris.

When oil or chemicals spill into coastal U.S. waters, the U.S. Coast Guard is the primary federal government agency charged with overseeing the response. To assist them, NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration is mandated to provide science-based expertise to help them make informed decisions during these emergency operations.

How do oil spills harm or kill ocean life? 

Where the oil is spilled, what kinds of plants, animals, and habitats are found there, and the amount and type of oil, among other things, can influence how much harm an oil spill causes. Generally, oil spills harm ocean life in two ways:

Fouling or oiling : Fouling or oiling occurs when oil physically harms a plant or animal. Oil can coat a bird’s wings and leave it unable to fly or strip away the insulating properties of a sea otter’s fur , putting it at risk of hypothermia. The degree of oiling often impacts the animal’s chances of survival.

Oil toxicity : Oil consists of many different toxic compounds. These toxic compounds can cause severe health problems like heart damage, stunted growth, immune system effects, and even death. Our understanding of oil toxicity has expanded by studying the effects of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

Wildlife recovery, cleaning, and rehabilitation is often an important part of oil spill response. However wildlife is difficult to find and catch, oil spills can happen over wide areas, and some animals (like whales) are too big to recover. Unfortunately, it’s unrealistic to rescue all wildlife impacted during oil spills.

When you think of California, some of the first things that come to mind might be sandy beaches, surfing, or sea otters floating in the kelp beds off the coast. It makes sense—the state has 3,427 miles of tidal shoreline! Along with these wild and wonderful natural resources, many important human resources line the coasts of the Golden State as well. Protecting these resources over thousands of miles is a tough job, but the first step is knowing what is there to protect. 

Who cleans up an oil spill — and how?

The U.S Coast Guard is primarily responsible for cleaning up oil spills, while NOAA experts provide scientific support to make smart decisions that protect people and the environment. There are different equipment and tactics that trained experts can use to contain or remove oil from the environment when a spill occurs. Booms are floating physical barriers to oil, which help keep it contained and away from sensitive areas, like beaches, mangroves, and wetlands. Skimmers are used off of boats and can “skim” oil from the sea surface. In situ burning, or setting fire to an oil slick, can burn the oil away at sea, and chemical dispersants can break up oil slicks from the surface.

However, cleanup activities can never remove 100% of the oil spilled, and scientists have to be careful that their actions don’t cause additional harm. After the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989, scientists learned that high-pressure, hot-water hoses used to clean up beaches caused more damage than the oil alone. Sensitive habitats need extra consideration during oil spill cleanup.

Who pays for oil spill cleanup and restoration? 

The Oil Pollution Act of 1990 established (among other things) that those responsible for oil spills can be held responsible to pay for cleanup and restoration. This process of assessing the impacts of a spill and reaching a settlement to fund restoration projects is called Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) . Federal, state, and tribal agencies work together with the party responsible for the oil spill throughout NRDA and select restoration projects with help from the public.

Working with partners from state, tribal, and federal agencies and industry, NOAA helps to recover funds from the parties responsible for the oil spill, usually through legal settlements. Over the last 30 years, NOAA has helped recover over $9 billion from those responsible for the oil spill to restore the ocean and Great Lakes.

In 2004, Taylor Energy’s MC20 oil production platform collapsed in an underwater mudslide caused by Hurricane Ivan, spilling oil into the Gulf of Mexico from the well site. This week marks the milestone of more than one million gallons of oil collected and removed from the environment by the U.S. Coast Guard.

How does NOAA help after an oil spill?

When a person gets sick, a doctor evaluates their symptoms, diagnoses a problem, and then prescribes a treatment to help them get better. That’s also what NOAA experts do after an oil spill: they evaluate what happened, assess the impacts, and then design restoration projects to help the ocean recover. Restoration isn’t the same as cleanup. It requires projects like building marshland or protecting bird nesting habitat to actively bolster the environment.

Restoration projects are important because they speed up the amount of time it takes for different species and habitats to recover. In addition to restoring habitats, the group responsible for the spill may also be held accountable for restoring access to natural spaces by constructing parks, boat ramps, and fishing piers.

What are the largest marine oil spills in American history?

There are three oil spills that stand out in American history, each of which was the largest oil spill into American waterways at the time. In 1969, a blowout on an offshore platform off the coast of Santa Barbara , California, spilled over four million gallons of oil. In 1989, the Exxon Valdez oil tanker ran aground in the Prince William Sound in Alaska, spilling over 11 million gallons of oil.

The largest marine oil spill in all of U.S. history was the Deepwater Horizon spill. On April 20, 2010, an explosion occurred on the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 people. Before it was capped three months later, approximately 134 million gallons of oil had spilled into the ocean. That is equivalent to the volume of over 200 Olympic-sized swimming pools. An $8.8 billion settlement for restoration was reached in 2016, and restoration is still continuing today.

A significant spill in Tampa in August 1993 had major impacts to recreational beaches and to shoreline vegetation. Despite decades passing by, NOAA continues to use photos from that incident to illustrate the challenges and trade-offs of shoreline cleanup. 

EDUCATION CONNECTION

Though we tend to be the most familiar with the massive incidents like Deepwater Horizon , did you know that thousands of smaller oil spills occur each year, some spilling less than a barrel of oil? Oil spills, in addition to nonpoint source pollution , threaten our ocean ecosystem. Learning about pollution, as well as our role in our ecosystem, can help protect ocean habitats by improving stewardship behaviors.

BP Deepwater Horizon Research Concludes After Years Of Studying The Gulf Of Mexico

Over the course of a decade, scientists looked into a strange phenomenon found in Gulf waters near the BP oil rig after the spill, and 12 expeditions were also mounted to collect environmental data.

After 10 years of researching the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill and its effects, scientists recently published their findings.

The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative, a consortium of 17 institutions in six countries, was funded through a $500 million grant from BP. The money was spent on a variety of studies, looking at both the Deepwater Horizon incident itself, and also the long-term ecological impacts.

One study looked at a phenomenon which hadn't been seen before: the initial large plumes of oil floated in the mid-depths of the Gulf of Mexico, not reaching the surface.

Steve Murawski is with the University of South Florida College of Marine Science , which was a leader in the multinational project. He said some experimentation was done in Hamburg, Germany, where researchers established a high-pressure facility to actually simulate the explosion.

“When it exploded, the oil that was coming up from three kilometers below the bottom was not only crude oil, but it was infused with methane gas,” said Murawski. “So, when those droplets came to the blowout preventer and were released into the ocean, the gas very suddenly exploded out of the oil droplets, and that created many small particles, and some of those particles never got to the surface.”

Multiple crews also tested for contaminants, which are still found around the Deepwater Horizon rig and in the shallow water marshes of Louisiana.

“It'll probably take 100 years to bury that oil below the levels at which it's not affecting things like clams and worms and whatnot,” said Murawski.

The biggest takeaway, he said, is that we weren't ready for this event.

"The Coast Guard Commandant who was running the Coast Guard then, he said, 'Look, we were very well prepared for another Exxon Valdez tanker accident. We weren't prepared for a large scale, deep-water blowout,' and neither the industry was prepared. They didn't have the technology to cap a runaway well, a mile deep, and the government wasn't prepared," said Murawski.

He thinks the government is still underprepared, but said oil companies have since developed costly preventative technologies.

The scientists have published their findings in two books: Deep Oil Spills , and Scenarios and Responses to Future Deep Oil Spills . Their work was also highlighted in a special issue of Oceanography , the official magazine of the Oceanography Society.

“It's been a long effort, really intensive effort, one that we all really enjoyed working together as a team,” said Murawski. “I'm a little sad that the team is breaking up… because that kind of funding doesn't exist in academia, except in rare cases.”

He is now shifting his focus to mapping ocean floors, starting with Tampa Bay this summer.

“We know so much about the skin of the earth, we know about terrestrial areas, we know about the surface of the ocean, but much of the undersea ocean has been not mapped at all,” said Murawski.

“Better maps of the of the bottom topography of the oceans will help us in many fields. It will help us in understanding the impacts of coastal storm surge and the vulnerability of our coasts. It will help us in natural resource management and that includes things like managing sand resources for the beaches, managing fishes and marine mammals etc. And it also helps us with precise navigation.”

Oil Spill Response Research

Oil Spill Response Research (OSRR) is one of the three essential roles of BSEE’s Oil Spill Preparedness Program and the Bureau’s related responsibilities are acknowledged in the National Contingency Plan (40 CFR Part 300—Oil Spill Response Appendix E – Section 6.4.5).  The Oil Spill Preparedness Division’s Response Research Branch (RRB) shepherds the OSSR role to provide offshore owners and operators and other stakeholders with new or improved technologies, tools, and procedures to combat oil spills. 

The technologies and data produced from robust government R&D inform regulatory updates, improve contingency plans, enhance the response tools in oil spill removal organization equipment inventories, and support safe and environmentally sustainable operations for offshore energy exploration and development. Government sponsored R&D also spurs economic growth by reducing the impacts of oil spills, yielding new innovations in technologies and tactics, identifying research gaps and dead-ends, and reducing investment risks for private R&D entities.

BSEE Research Scientists and Engineers perform the full spectrum of R&D (basic, applied, and developmental research) to advance the detection, containment, and cleanup of oil spills that may occur from offshore facilities. Specific research emphasized includes mechanical containment and recovery, remote sensing, in-situ burning, chemical treatments such as dispersants and herders, and incident management team decision-making tools. You can learn more about BSEE’s efforts in these research areas by reviewing our projects at  Research Records | Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (bsee.gov) .

The RRB coordinates research efforts between organizations and disseminates findings and recommendations through a variety of internal, public, and international forums, such as formal committees, workshops, conferences, publications, and the Internet. White papers and research proposals are most often solicited through announcements published on the  beta.SAM.gov  website.   Unsolicited research proposals can also be submitted for consideration through the BSEE Acquisitions Management Division.

Interagency Coordinating Committee on Oil Pollution Research (ICCOPR)

The Oil Spill Preparedness Division serves as the BSEE representative and key member of ICCOPR, a 16-member Interagency Committee established by Title VII of the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (Section 7001).

ICCOPR’s Mission

"To coordinate a comprehensive program of oil pollution research, technology development, and demonstration among the federal agencies, in cooperation and coordination with industry, universities, research institutions, state governments, and other nations, as appropriate, and shall foster cost-effective research mechanisms, including the joint funding of the research."

ICCOPR meets quarterly and periodically publishes an Oil Pollution Research and Technology (R&T) Plan that assesses the current state of oil pollution research and establishes priority research needs. The current R&T Plan was published in 2021 and identifies 171 priority research needs in 28 Standing Research Areas - many of which directly inform the Bureau’s R&D needs and priorities.

ICCOPR Research & Technology Plan

OSPD Research Report Specifications

(Instructions for authors, vendors, contract and project managers.)

OSPD Report Specifications - A pdf document that describes the requirements for preparing reports in OSPD.

OSPD Report Template - A Microsoft Word document that serves as a template for starting a report that complies with the OSPD Report Specifications.

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USF Marine Scientists Conclude 10 Years of Unprecedented Studies on the Impacts of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

• April 13, 2020

Research and Innovation

By Sandra C. Roa , University Communications and Marketing

On April 20, 2010, the offshore oil drilling ship Deepwater Horizon exploded, killing 11 crewmen and resulting in over $60 billion in clean-up costs, penalties, fines and restitution to affected businesses. The drill ship sank two days after and leaked about five million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, just 50 miles south of Louisiana’s coastline. This eventually became the largest accidental marine oil spill in global history.

Researchers from the University of South Florida (USF) were on scene shortly after the sinking, pressing the newly acquired research vessel Weatherbird II into service as the first scheduled research expedition to collect water samples and other critical information, thanks to rapid funding granted by the USF Foundation and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Weeks after the disaster, BP announced a $500 million fund, distributed over 10 years by the independent Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) to help scientists and communities understand the immediate and long-term impacts on marine life and coastal environments. Over the ensuing decade, USF received a significant portion of the funds, totaling over $37 million, to establish the Center for Integrated Modeling and Analysis of Gulf Ecosystems (C-IMAGE), an international consortium of professors, post-doctoral scholars and students from 19 collaborating institutions. C-IMAGE’s goal has been to conduct research and make critical scientific conclusions that impact policy-driven recommendations for the future of deep-water oil drilling. C-IMAGE is one of dozens of consortia, research teams and individuals that received GoMRI funding.

One of the most significant contributions by C-IMAGE researchers has been to compile the first comprehensive baseline of oil contamination across the entirety of the Gulf of Mexico. Researchers sampled over 15,000 fish and took over 2,500 sediment cores (see map), initially finding high incidences of skin lesions and other abnormalities in fish near the Deepwater Horizon site, which abated over time. In addition, high levels of oil contamination were detected in fish that also declined with time.

Map shows significant points of scientific field efforts conducted with international collaborators.

“We’ve been pulling together all of these critical pieces of research and incorporating them into larger ecosystem-wide modeling studies. This is the basis for making predictions of how the Gulf will respond to future spills and deep blowouts,” said Steven Murawski, director of C-IMAGE and endowed chair of biological oceanography in the USF College of Marine Science.

Since 2010, studies show a 50 to 80 percent population decrease in deep water (mesopelagic) fish populations near the blowout site. This could have lasting impacts in other areas of the Gulf due to their movement patterns and the fact that these species are important prey for many other Gulf animals including predatory fish, squids and marine mammals. Among the species, oyster, blue crab, bottlenose dolphins, red snapper and southern hake show population declines .

One of the important observations from the Gulf-wide survey of fish is that all species subjected to detailed chemical analyses revealed some degree of oil pollution. A recent study published in “Nature Scientific Reports” looked at 2,500 individual fish representing 91 species from 359 locations across the Gulf. USF marine scientists found the highest levels of oil exposure were detected in yellowfin tuna, golden tilefish and red drum. 

“Literally all the fish that we’ve tested have some level of hydrocarbon; there are no pristine fish in this system,” Murawski said.

Scientists also found traces of oil compounds in the lipid storage reserves in fish that can be passed onto future generations through their eggs. In efforts to better understand the spill’s long-term impact, researchers have been studying spawning activity sites for various species and recently launched a 15-year study to track fish eggs using a DNA identification system called barcoding. This study, funded by the Florida Restore Act Centers of Excellence program, will help locate precisely where fish spawning hot spots occur and potentially lead to greater protections for these areas.

While the Deepwater Horizon spill was catastrophic, its footprint remained limited to the Gulf due to an anomaly in the offshore “loop current” that prevented oil-tainted Gulf waters from moving up the U.S. east coast.

Dr. Erin Pulster with USF identifies specimens with Mexican colleagues from the National Autonomous University of Mexico on the RV Weatherbird.

USF researchers were the first to discover that oil was widely distributed on bottom sediments along the northern Gulf, thus providing evidence that not all oil floats. Ernst Peebles, associate professor of biological oceanography, and David Hollander, professor of chemical oceanography, worked together to identify specific chemical compounds in sub-surface oil plumes northeast of the wreck site by using a filtration process to isolate the oil droplets. This conclusively linked the subsurface plumes northeast of the site to the oil from the blowout. The blowout occurred at about 1,500 meters deep and under extreme pressures 150 times that at sea level. As the oil escaped the 21-inch wellhead pipe and into this highly pressurized system, it was atomized into micro droplets and rose through the water column until it was neutrally buoyant, creating the sub-surface plumes. This was of major concern for scientists since marine life moves throughout the deep Gulf, traversing the sub-surface plumes and transporting the oil with them.

“There was an enormous amount of chemistry that was going on, physical interactions at the molecular and intra molecular level, that lent itself to really unique circumstances,” Hollander said.

Sediments, or mud samples, taken from the seafloor at different sites around the wellhead revealed traces of oil there as well. The oil attached to suspended planktonic particles, settled through the water column and was ultimately deposited on the seafloor, a mechanism known as “Marine Oil Snow Sediment and Flocculent Accumulation” (MOSSFA). This accumulation accounted for upwards of 10 percent of the total oil released. Biological systems living near or on the seafloor interact with MOSSFA and are continuously re-exposed to the oil compounds. Researchers examined biota from this region and showed that these “indicator species” and other invertebrate communities had varied impact and recovery rates.

In an effort to predict recovery rates of the deep ecosystem of the Gulf, researchers were compelled to look back in time to examine the benthic system in the southwestern region of the Gulf, where a previous mega-oil spill oil occurred. The Ixtoc 1 spilled for months during 1979-1980 in the Bay of Campeche, Mexico, at 50 meters deep and spilled about two-thirds of the oil compared to the Deepwater Horizon event.

Sediments from the seafloor are collected and analyzed for toxic compounds.

Studies in the Bay of Campeche conducted by C-IMAGE researchers focused on the sediment layers around the Ixtoc 1well to examine whether the seabed still contained any traces of oil from the spill from 40 years prior. Researchers extracted sediment cores from the seabed, a sampling technique that allows the analysis of sediment layers accumulating over time. This allowed scientists to put a “time stamp” on any traces of oil they found.

“Ixtoc 1 provides us with a vision for what we can expect will be left of the Deepwater Horizon spill in 40 years. This type of information is invaluable for assessing long-term impacts in the event of yet another large volume spill,” Hollander said.    

Hollander’s geochemical studies show that even after four decades, oil components persist in underwater sediments to this day. As much as two million barrels of Ixtoc 1 oil were estimated to have settled on the seafloor and on coastal marshlands primarily in the Bay of Campache.

They’ve also taken data from dozens of other spills and used the findings from Ixtoc 1 and the Deepwater Horizon as baselines to determine the impact of oil in sediments. These studies help develop and “ground truth” predictive models that explain how microdroplets of oil break down and spread under water. Interaction with bacteria and phytoplankton contribute to the biodegradation of oil, but these transformation processes also alter the Gulf’s natural ecosystem and affect tiny and larger marine life in unknown and unexpected ways.

“These transformation products potentially can be more dangerous than their precursor compounds,” said Isabel Romero, a research associate in the USF College of Marine Science.

Romero joined Hollander’s research team in 2012 as a postdoctoral scholar. She’s been studying the chemical interactions of the oil traces found in the deep pelagic system and their lasting effects on future generations of fish and invertebrates. In 2015, Romero became a research associate at USF and received several grants to continue her work, including her involvement in another GoMRI-funded consortium, the Deep Pelagic Nekton Dynamics of the Gulf of Mexico.

More recently, Romero received funds to continue studying deep-sea environments through the National Academy of Sciences and the NOAA RESTORE Science Program . C-IMAGE has provided early career opportunities for researchers such as Romero and has contributed to the educations of over 200 undergraduate, graduate and post-doctoral scholars who’ve benefited from working across multiple disciplines, institutions and countries.

“Being able to grow in a group of scientists for the last eight years, that's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” Romero said. “The GoMRI program opened my vision of working in different environments with very different techniques and people to understand basic, but very important questions of the deep pelagic ocean of the Gulf of Mexico.”

USF students Susan Snyder and Kristina Deak count fin spines to properly identify fish species.

One of USF’s greatest achievements over the last 10 years is developing intense and consistent multi-disciplinary research and collaboration between scientists and students in different disciplines of science (biologists, chemists, engineers, geologists, etc.). They created new methods, raised different questions and modified tools to accommodate their interdisciplinary approaches. Students have gone up the academic ranks into graduate, post-doctoral positions, leading their own studies using the techniques and relationships from their experience. Other students have since found jobs as oil experts to help drive policy changes and staff agencies and private businesses dealing with oil spill preparedness.

“From day one, the students were indoctrinated for the big vision. Master's degrees and PhD dissertations have turned into publications in very well-respected journals,” Murawski said. “They learned how to become professionals and also had to do something very significant in society, and that's pretty much all you can ask for in an academic experience.”

C-IMAGE disbands at the end of June 2020. GoMRI will continue through the end of the year to synthesize all the studies completed with the BP-funded grant. While there are many lessons learned that will help during the next response to a major oil spill, the end of the 10-year grant brings many questions about what’s next.

USF researchers continue to search for additional funding to build on the C-IMAGE legacy. The expansion of offshore drilling, particularly into the ultra-deep sea, is of major concern to scientists. As the industry moves drilling into deeper waters, predictive models and methods will need adjustments.

“One of the things that we've strived to do is to point out that the conditions in this industry are changing dramatically and we need to be nimble enough to respond to new conditions as opposed to old conditions that we understand,” Murawski said.

The Deepwater Horizon explosion created some unusual challenges for researchers. Time was a main factor in the aftermath of the BP oil spill. Coastal communities, fishing industries, policy makers and the public needed to know the impacts of the oil spill at speeds that don’t normally fit into how academic research studies work. Scientists worked real-time to conduct, review and publish results of studies to scientifically ground the severity of the spill.

As contributors to the stewardship of the Gulf’s natural systems, USF researchers will continue to study the complexities of the Gulf ecosystem to provide a clearer understanding of the effects of the large number of anthropogenic stressors like climate change, overfishing, and energy exploration and extraction, but policy changes are the key to moving the needle forward.

While the C-IMAGE program is nearing its end, the relationships and collaborations will extend well beyond the June 30 end date. C-IMAGE will maintain its collaborative and international approaches to studying the Gulf of Mexico and beyond. Its data will live on at the USF Libraries , which received a portion of the funding to coordinate, catalog, and make the data accessible to the public.

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Laser-treated cork absorbs oil for carbon-neutral ocean cleanup

Treated cork has higher absorbance, harnesses sunlight to trap oil in minutes.

Researchers use laser treatments to transform ordinary cork into a powerful tool for treating oil spills. They tested variations of a fast-pulsing laser treatment, closely examining the nanoscopic structural changes and measuring the ratio of oxygen and carbon in the material, changes in the angles with which water and oil contact the surface, and the material's light wave absorption, reflection, and emission across the spectrum to determine its durability after multiple cycles of warming and cooling. The laser treatments not only help to better absorb oil, but also work to keep water out.

Oil spills are deadly disasters for ocean ecosystems. They can have lasting impacts on fish and marine mammals for decades and wreak havoc on coastal forests, coral reefs, and the surrounding land. Chemical dispersants are often used to break down oil, but they often increase toxicity in the process.

In Applied Physics Letters , by AIP Publishing, researchers from Central South University, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev used laser treatments to transform ordinary cork into a powerful tool for treating oil spills.

They wanted to create a nontoxic, effective oil cleanup solution using materials with a low carbon footprint, but their decision to try cork resulted from a surprising discovery.

"In a different laser experiment, we accidentally found that the wettability of the cork processed using a laser changed significantly, gaining superhydrophobic (water-repelling) and superoleophilic (oil-attracting) properties," author Yuchun He said. "After appropriately adjusting the processing parameters, the surface of the cork became very dark, which made us realize that it might be an excellent material for photothermal conversion."

"Combining these results with the eco-friendly, recyclable advantages of cork, we thought of using it for marine oil spill cleanup," author Kai Yin said. "To our knowledge, no one else has tried using cork for cleaning up marine oil spills."

Cork comes from the bark of cork oak trees, which can live for hundreds of years. These trees can be harvested about every seven years, making cork a renewable material. When the bark is removed, the trees amplify their biological activity to replace it and increase their carbon storage, so harvesting cork helps mitigate carbon emissions.

The authors tested variations of a fast-pulsing laser treatment to achieve the optimal balance of characteristics in the cork that can be achieved at low cost. They closely examined nanoscopic structural changes and measured the ratio of oxygen and carbon in the material, changes in the angles with which water and oil contact the surface, and the material's light wave absorption, reflection, and emission across the spectrum to determine its durability after multiple cycles of warming and cooling.

The photothermal properties endowed in cork through this laser processing allow the cork to warm quickly in the sun. The deep grooves also increase the surface area exposed to sunlight, so the cork can be warmed by just a little sunlight in 10-15 seconds. This energy is used to heat up spilled oil, lowering its viscosity and making it easier to collect. In experiments, the laser-treated cork collected oil out of water within 2 minutes.

The laser treatments not only help to better absorb oil, but also work to keep water out.

"When the cork undergoes a fast-pulsing laser treatment, its surface microstructure becomes rougher," Yin said. "This micro- to nano-level roughness enhances hydrophobicity."

As a result, the cork collects the oil without absorbing water, so the oil can be extracted from the cork and possibly even reused.

"Oil recovery is a complex and systematic task, and participating in oil recovery throughout its entire life cycle is our goal," Yuchun He said. "The next step is to prepare electrothermal materials using polyurethane foam as the skeleton for oil adsorption, combining photothermal and electrothermal techniques to form an all-weather oil recovery system."

• Energy and Resources
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Materials provided by American Institute of Physics . Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Journal Reference :

• Yuchun He, Kai Yin, Lingxiao Wang, Tingni Wu, Yu Chen, Christopher J. Arnusch. Femtosecond laser structured black superhydrophobic cork for efficient solar-driven cleanup of crude oil . Applied Physics Letters , 2024; 124 (17) DOI: 10.1063/5.0199291

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Fourteen years after the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, endemic fishes face an uncertain future

T he 2010 Gulf of Mexico Deepwater Horizon was the largest accidental oil spill in history. With almost 100 million gallons (379 million liters) of oil combined with dispersants suggested to remain in the Gulf, it is one of the worst pollution events ever. More than a decade later, its long-term effects are still not fully understood.

In a new study , researchers from Louisiana State University and Tulane University examined the endemic Gulf of Mexico fish species that may have been most impacted by the oil spill to see how their distribution has changed over the years. To get their data, they studied museum specimens from natural history collections, looked at relevant literature, and combed biodiversity databases.

With 1541 fish species known from the region, and 78 endemic fish species, the Gulf of Mexico is one of the most biologically rich and resilient marine environments in the world, but how much of this diversity is still left intact?

The study found that 29 out of the Gulf's 78 endemic fish species haven't been reported in museum collections since 2010. The Yucatan killifish, for example, which is considered endangered , was last reported pre-spill, in 2005, off the Yucatán Peninsula.

Six of the non-reported species are considered of greatest concern, because their areas of distribution largely overlap with the affected area—although the authors note that their absence in the Gulf in recent years cannot automatically be attributed to the oil spill.

"Understanding the impacts of catastrophic environmental events such as the 2010 Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill does not end when the wellhead is capped or when the last drops of oil cease to flow. The disaster only begins to end when the data no longer show impacts of the event.

"We are far from the beginning of the end for the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. Lingering chemicals, lost generations of wildlife and a continued ecosystem imbalance may all be factors that prevent an environment from rebounding from such cataclysmic events," the authors note in their research article.

However, they also point out that nature's ability to recover should not be overlooked.

"The Gulf of Mexico continues to face many challenges, from the Dead Zone, to climate change, loss of coast habitats and continued oil spills. Efforts like this report aim to bring attention to vulnerable species that continue to be impacted by human activities and to the unique endemic fauna of the region," the researchers write in conclusion.

More information: Prosanta Chakrabarty et al, Ten years later: An update on the status of collections of endemic Gulf of Mexico fishes put at risk by the 2010 Oil Spill, Biodiversity Data Journal (2024). DOI: 10.3897/BDJ.12.e113399

Provided by Pensoft Publishers

How oil spills impact ocean animals

BY:  Jessica McLean

Fourteen years ago, BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded, killing 11 workers and hundreds of thousands of marine animals. The spill leaked oil into the Gulf of Mexico for 87 days, poisoning over 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) of shorelines. It became one of the worst environmental disasters in United States history.  

Oil spills are not just environmental disasters; they are tragedies for coastal communities and the countless marine animals that call our oceans home. From sea turtles and dolphins to seabirds and fish, no creature is spared from the devastating effects of these catastrophic events. 

FOUR ANIMALS IMPACTED BY OIL SPILLS

Marine mammals.

Marine mammals, such as bottlenose dolphins, spend a lot of time near the surface of the water, where oil floats, putting them at high risk during oil spills. They can be exposed through breathing in the oil, eating oiled food, or swimming through it – all of which can lead to devastating health issues.  

Birds, once oiled, cannot regulate their temperature, or use their feathers for insulation against water and cold weather – which can lead to death by hypothermia. Oiled birds can also die from dehydration and exhaustion.  

Sea turtles

Sea turtles, like the endangered Kemp’s ridley turtle, are vulnerable to oil at all stages of life – from eggs laid on beaches, to juveniles and adults. They can inhale oil fumes and swallow oil when breathing at the ocean surface in or near oil slicks.  

Fish and Shellfish

Fish important to recreational and commercial fishers, including bluefin and yellowfin tuna, are also impacted. Oily water damages the gills of fish and makes it harder for them to get enough oxygen. Oil can also kill fish eggs and can be detrimental to growth in young fish.  

HOW YOU CAN HELP

We can and must do more to protect our oceans, climate, coastal communities, and marine wildlife from the effects of dirty and dangerous offshore drilling. Sign our new petition and make your voice heard to protect our coasts. 

Learn more about Oceana’s campaigns to prevent new offshore drilling here .

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Once praised, settlement to help sickened BP oil spill workers leaves most with nearly nothing

A cleanup worker picks up blobs of oil in absorbent snare on Queen Bess Island at the mouth of Barataria Bay near the Gulf of Mexico in Plaquemines Parish, La., June 4, 2010. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Thousands of ordinary people who helped clean up after the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico say they got sick. A court settlement was supposed to help compensate them, but it hasn’t turned out as expected. (AP video by Gerald Herbert and Kristin M. Hall)

Thousands of workers who helped clean up after the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico say they got sick — and despite a massive court settlement, many haven’t been helped. (Source: Federal Court Records) (AP Animation: Donavon Brutus)

FILE - A cleanup worker picks up blobs of oil in absorbent snare on Queen Bess Island at the mouth of Barataria Bay near the Gulf of Mexico in Plaquemines Parish, La., June 4, 2010. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File)

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FILE - Oil leaks in the Gulf of Mexico southeast of Venice on Louisiana’s tip, as the Deepwater Horizon oil rig burns on April 21, 2010. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File)

Former boat captain John Maas poses for a portrait on Wednesday, April 26, 2023, in Nashville, Tenn. Thousands of people who helped clean up after the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico say they got sick, including Maas. Attorneys familiar with the issue say he’s the only one who has received a settlement after suing. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

FILE - A plane drops chemicals to help disperse oil from a leaking pipeline that resulted from an explosion and collapse of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico near the coast of Louisiana, April 27, 2010. When a deadly explosion destroyed BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico, tens of thousands of ordinary people were hired to help clean up the environmental devastation. These workers were exposed to crude oil and the chemical dispersant Corexit while picking up tar balls along the shoreline, laying booms from fishing boats to soak up slicks and rescuing oil-covered birds. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)

FILE - Workers head to the beach to clean up oil residue in Grand Isle, La., May 30, 2010. When a deadly explosion destroyed BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico, tens of thousands of ordinary people were hired to help clean up the environmental devastation. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

FILE - Workers use absorbent pads to remove oil that has washed ashore from the Deepwater Horizon spill, June 6, 2010, in Grand Isle, La. When a deadly explosion destroyed BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico, tens of thousands of ordinary people were hired to help clean up the environmental devastation. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)

Paul Loup IV poses for a photo in his home with his wife Sallie Loup in Hurley, Miss., Monday, Jan. 29, 2024. Thousands of ordinary people who helped clean up after the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico say they got sick, including Loup, the former beach cleanup worker. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

John Maas poses for a portrait on Wednesday, April 26, 2023, in Nashville, Tenn. Thousands of people who helped clean up after the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico say they got sick, including Maas. Attorneys familiar with the issue say he’s the only one who has received a settlement after suing. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

FILE - A crew member looks at the oil slick in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig collapse, Thursday, May 6, 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

FILE - A brown pelican is covered in oil on the beach in the aftermath of an oil spill at East Grand Terre Island along the Louisiana coast on June 3, 2010. When a deadly explosion destroyed BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico, tens of thousands of ordinary people were hired to help clean up the environmental devastation. These workers were exposed to crude oil and the chemical dispersant Corexit while picking up tar balls along the shoreline, laying booms from fishing boats to soak up slicks and rescuing oil-covered birds. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File)

FILE - Workers shovel oil that washed up from the deadly explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig on Fourchon Beach in Port Fourchon, La., May 24, 2010. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)

FILE - A worker shovels oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill off Fourchon Beach in Port Fourchon, La., May 24, 2010. When a deadly explosion destroyed BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico, tens of thousands of ordinary people were hired to help clean up the environmental devastation. These workers were exposed to crude oil and the chemical dispersant Corexit while picking up tar balls along the shoreline, laying booms from fishing boats to soak up slicks and rescuing oil-covered birds. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)

FILE - A worker walks through the water as a berm system is constructed in the aftermath of the gulf oil spill on the northern end of the Chandeleur Islands, La., July 15, 2010. When a deadly explosion destroyed BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico, tens of thousands of ordinary people were hired to help clean up the environmental devastation. (AP Photo/Dave Martin, File)

When a deadly explosion destroyed BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico, 134 million gallons of crude erupted into the sea over the next three months — and tens of thousands of ordinary people were hired to help clean up environmental devastation from the biggest offshore oil spill in U.S. history.

These workers were exposed to crude oil and the chemical dispersant Corexit while picking up tar balls along the shoreline, laying booms from fishing boats to soak up slicks and rescuing oil-covered birds.

Recognizing that some members of cleanup crews had likely become sick, BP agreed to a medical claims settlement two years after the 2010 disaster. Experts hailed it as “an extraordinary achievement” that would compensate workers fairly with little hassle.

But it hasn’t turned out that way.

The effort has fallen far short of expectations, leaving many workers who claimed lasting health effects stranded with little or no payment.

Through the settlement, BP has paid ill workers and coastal residents a tiny fraction — $67 million — of the billions the company has spent on restitution for economic and environmental damage . The vast majority — 79% — received no more than $1,300 each.

Many workers claiming illnesses from the spill were forced to sue — and they’ve fared worse. All but a handful of roughly 4,800 lawsuits seeking compensation for health problems have been dismissed.

Attorneys familiar with the cases say they are unaware of any that have gone to trial and know of only one that’s been settled. Former boat captain John Maas received $110,000 from BP for his lung ailments in 2022, according to a confidential copy of the settlement.

The repeated failures demonstrate how extremely difficult it is to prove to a court that a specific illness is caused by chemical exposure — even when those chemicals are recognized causes of illness more generally.

AP AUDIO: Once praised, settlement to help sickened BP oil spill workers leaves most with nearly nothing.

Thousands of ordinary people who helped clean up after the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico say they got sick. A court settlement was supposed to help compensate them, but it hasn’t turned out as expected. AP correspondent Jaime Holguin reports on the story behind the story.

An Associated Press investigation that included dozens of interviews with cleanup workers, attorneys and experts, and a review of voluminous court filings revealed:

—A single switched word in the settlement prevented thousands of workers from receiving anything over the minimum of $1,300 each. To get more, they had to file individual lawsuits — an option that almost always led to defeat.

—Most federal judges hearing those cases required a level of proof connecting chemical exposure to worker illnesses that the lead government epidemiologist studying the spill says is likely impossible to meet.

—Big law firms representing dozens or even thousands of workers failed their clients in various ways. After BP accused one firm of manufacturing medical claims, its cases were dismissed in big batches.

Robin Greenwald, one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys who negotiated the settlement, said even her firm has not been able to win a single medical case against BP.

“I wanted people to get their day in court and they win or lose at trial,” said Greenwald, a former federal environmental prosecutor. “Let a jury decide. ... But they weren’t even given the chance to do that.”

BP declined to comment for this story, citing ongoing litigation 14 years after the spill.

A plane drops chemicals to help disperse oil from a leaking pipeline that resulted from an explosion and collapse of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico near the coast of Louisiana, April 27, 2010. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

GETTING SICK

After the explosion on April 20, 2010, the spill was spectacular. A camera live-streamed the rupture on cable news, showing the world in real time gushing oil that wouldn’t stop. Oil floated on the Gulf and washed ashore, covering plants, birds and other animals.

To break up oil, roughly 1.8 million gallons of Corexit were dropped from planes and sprayed from boats — far more than previous U.S. oil spills. The manufacturer said it was safer than dish soap.

But lab research on human tissue and animals has revealed Corexit can damage cells that protect the airways and cause scarring that narrows breathing tubes, according to Dr. Veena Antony, a University of Alabama professor of pulmonary and critical care medicine who has studied Corexit’s effect on lung tissue. Over time, she said, the process can make it harder and harder to breathe.

“I genuinely believe that there was harm done and we didn’t realize the harm was being done — and now people are suffering,” said Antony, who testified as an expert witness in one suit against BP. “I would not, at the present time, put my hand even in Corexit without wearing double gloves.”

Workers head to the beach to clean up oil residue in Grand Isle, La., May 30, 2010. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Workers use absorbent pads to remove oil that has washed ashore from the Deepwater Horizon spill, June 6, 2010, in Grand Isle, La. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

The current producer of Corexit, ChampionX, said the dispersant was pre-approved by the government for use on oil spills and the manufacturer had no role in deciding when or how to spray it.

Oil itself has long been known to cause illness. One of its toxic components is benzene , which can cause conditions ranging from skin irritation to cancer.

But now researchers, including Dale Sandler at the National Institutes of Health, are finding that spill workers exposed to amounts of oil assumed safe have suffered from dizziness, nausea, lung problems and heart attacks .

“The exposures on average were still pretty low,” said Sandler, an epidemiologist leading the GuLFSTUDY, a major effort to quantify workers’ exposure and track health woes over years. “What surprised us is that we did see a wide range of health effects that were associated with these exposures.”

Sandler said the study is the largest ever of an oil spill and is ongoing. “We’re looking at long-term risks like diabetes, cancer incidence,” she said.

What researchers have found so far is echoed by other studies, including one involving about 3,500 Coast Guard responders. The responders who reported breathing oil fumes were 40% to 50% more likely to have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease-like symptoms and sinus problems compared to those who said they didn’t breathe fumes. And responders who reported exposure to both oil and Corexit were more than twice as likely to suffer shortness of breath.

A PROMISING SETTLEMENT

Proving to a court that a specific person’s illness was likely caused by their exposure to oil or Corexit can be difficult.

Yet the settlement for medical claims was supposed to make it easier for workers: BP would agree exposure to the spill could cause a host of known health issues — and workers suffering from them could file claims for payment. Initially, attorneys advocating for the settlement said it could help as many as 200,000 possibly injured workers and residents.

The settlement also included $105 million from BP for regional health outreach and free health checkups for exposed workers every three years for 21 years.

But things quickly went awry.

The third-party administrator hired to handle claims, Garretson Resolution Group, initially rejected 78% of roughly 37,000 claims. After many were resubmitted, around 36% still were rejected and claimants received nothing.

Greenwald was especially frustrated her clients’ claims were repeatedly deemed deficient. “We had many a meeting with Garretson’s team to try to shake them loose of some of their narrow reading and obsession with deficiencies,” she said. “We clearly knew the claim form. We negotiated it.”

Matthew Garretson, founder of Garretson Resolution Group, defended his claims handling in an email, saying, “it was the process the parties agreed upon and we had to administer the settlement exactly in the way the parties’ Settlement Agreement mandated.” The company was paid roughly $115 million to $120 million for administering claims and for the outreach program and medical checkup effort as of 2018, he said.

There was a bigger problem.

A brown pelican is covered in oil on the beach in the aftermath of an oil spill at East Grand Terre Island along the Louisiana coast on June 3, 2010. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

A worker shovels oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill off Fourchon Beach in Port Fourchon, La., May 24, 2010. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)

At the most basic level, workers could submit affidavits attesting to their medical problems and collect $1,300 — and residents could collect $900. About 18,000 received that much.

Those with longer-term illnesses who had proof from medical tests could collect up to $60,700, or more if they had been hospitalized.

But few people had that proof. Forty of about 23,000 with approved claims collected the maximum award — less than 0.2%.

Many people lacked health insurance or easy access to a doctor and the required medical tests — a problem U.S. District Court Judge Carl Barbier, who approved the settlement, acknowledged in a hearing.

“Speaking for south Louisiana, I know — you’re dealing with people who are probably at the lower end of the socioeconomic scale. Most of these people, I feel sure, likely have no health insurance,” he said.

Even when people did seek medical attention, doctors untrained in treating chemical exposures often did not link illnesses to a patient’s cleanup work in medical records, according to Greenwald.

Paul Loup IV poses for a photo in his home with his wife Sallie Loup in Hurley, Miss., Monday, Jan. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

THE NATIONS CLIENTS

The Nations Law Firm, based in Houston, represented thousands of workers like Paul Loup IV, who helped clean an oil-contaminated beach in Pascagoula, Mississippi for several months.

Loup, 68, says he now has chronic respiratory issues, making it hard to stand or speak at length. He quit his job as a procurement manager because it involved too much travel.

The firm had wanted to help clients collect more than the settlement’s $1,300 minimum, so it developed a plan to obtain needed medical proof.

It was an assembly line. Out-of-state nurse practitioners who were paid $20 per plaintiff entered medical histories based on information the law firm — not a doctor — provided. Firm-designed forms listed illnesses that paid more under the settlement — and doctors could simply circle them. The forms included a statement linking a patient’s illness to oil spill work — with a line for the doctor to sign. Doctors didn’t keep their own patient records.

While such a process might seem suspect, firm founder Howard Nations said in an interview that he met with the claims administrator Garretson to try to develop an acceptable one.

Garretson rejected the claims — not based on the process, but on a deadline.

Workers shovel oil that washed up from the deadly explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig on Fourchon Beach in Port Fourchon, La., May 24, 2010. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

THE DEADLINE AND A SWITCHED WORD

The settlement was designed to make it easy to collect money for illnesses that surfaced quickly after crude oil exposure. People with diseases that can show up years later — such as cancer — would be forced to file individual federal lawsuits.

Early settlement drafts defined this second group as people with a disease that “manifests” after April 16, 2012. However, a later draft changed the word “manifests” to “diagnosed.”

In 2014, BP seized on that change to argue no one diagnosed after the deadline could receive an award for a long-term illness through the settlement.

That meant two people could have the same illness, but the one who got a diagnosis before the deadline could file a claim for compensation while the other would need to file a suit instead.

Judge Barbier said that’s not how he was led to believe the settlement he okayed would work.

“It is rather strange … that the court would approve a settlement, a class settlement that really doesn’t settle thousands of claims and requires them to file another lawsuit,” Barbier said at a 2014 hearing. “I mean, it doesn’t sound like much of a settlement.”

BP attorneys said any other interpretation would invite fraud, allowing opportunistic law firms to pay for a medical diagnosis after the deadline to get a settlement claims payout. They also said the word change was requested by the workers’ own attorneys, and Stephen Herman, co-lead counsel for plaintiffs’ attorneys, testified they didn’t recall how it happened.

Despite his doubts, Barbier said he had to follow the settlement language.

His ruling forced thousands of workers out of the relatively easy administrative claims process into federal courts throughout the South.

Former boat captain John Maas poses for a portrait on Wednesday, April 26, 2023, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

THE FEDERAL LAWSUITS

The ruling was devastating for Nations clients whose only option was to file federal lawsuits.

After BP attorneys alleged in Mississippi federal court that the firm manufactured medical diagnoses, Nations agreed to dismiss its cases by the dozens. In an interview, Nations did not deny BP’s allegations but said the cases were unwinnable without an adequate expert witness.

Loup, the former beach cleanup worker, said he didn’t know until informed by a reporter last year that his case had been dismissed years earlier. “I call (Nations) every six months or so ... and they’ve just said it’s going to take some time,” he said.

Another Nations client was Jeff Herring, the deckhand of Maas, the boat captain believed to be the only person whose case reached a settlement.

When their boat was sprayed with Corexit, Herring started throwing up so badly an ambulance was called to pick him up. Although released from the hospital after a few days, he developed chronic sinus and respiratory problems, according to his lawsuit.

Months later, a doctor at an oil spill medical station referred him to a specialist, and he was hospitalized again, said Herring, now 39. An X-ray found spots on his lungs, and he was supposed to go to New Orleans for further testing but never did.

“That would have took another two weeks being in a hospital over there,” he said. “I couldn’t because I had to get back to work.”

Noting he had no insurance, Herring said he received about $8,000 through the claims process — not enough to even pay hospital bills.

Herring’s suit was thrown out in 2020 along with 235 other Nations cases, but he said he wasn’t told.

Howard Nations said the firm communicated with clients about the status of their cases and although the individual suits were dismissed, he intends to go back to Judge Barbier with new arguments.

Oil leaks in the Gulf of Mexico southeast of Venice on Louisiana’s tip, as the Deepwater Horizon oil rig burns on April 21, 2010. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

EXPERT WITNESSES

Other law firms met a different obstacle:

Workers filing individual lawsuits have to prove they were exposed to enough oil or dispersant to — more likely than not — cause their illness.

The workers’ experts relied on studies, such as those from the National Institutes of Health and the Coast Guard, that found people exposed to oil and Corexit were more likely to develop certain illnesses.

But BP’s experts maintained workers needed to show exactly how much oil and dispersant they had inhaled or ingested and that it was sufficient to cause their sickness.

Greenwald, the attorney who helped craft the settlement, said meeting such a standard is almost impossible: “I mean, ‘How deep did you breathe? Right at the moment you were standing there, was the wind blowing?’” she said. “What mortal human would be able to testify about that?”

Most judges have sided with BP, rejecting workers’ experts as unreliable and effectively ending the cases.

Sandler, the NIH epidemiologist, said its researchers went to great lengths to develop data on exposure like nothing ever been done before. “I’m not sure that they’ll ever meet the standards that the court is imposing on what constitutes evidence,” she said.

It also can be difficult to find an expert witness who knows the science but doesn’t have a conflict of interest through work with the oil industry.

The Falcon Law Firm brought on Jerald Cook, a retired Navy physician trained in occupational and environmental medicine, as an expert on numerous cases. He was rejected again and again by judges as BP poked holes in his professional history and work.

“Your report really doesn’t balance the evidence favoring your conclusions with the evidence that disfavors your conclusions; isn’t that fair?” a BP attorney asked Cook in a deposition.

“Yeah. I think that’s — that’s fair,” Cook replied.

He declined comment, and Falcon did not reply to requests for comment.

Some law firms that took on hundreds of cases have simply buckled under the strain, begging judges for more time so their overloaded experts could produce reports.

A worker walks through the water as a berm system is constructed in the aftermath of the gulf oil spill on the northern end of the Chandeleur Islands, La., July 15, 2010. (AP Photo/Dave Martin)

LOOKING FORWARD

It’s not completely over.

The Downs Law Group, which has lost hundreds of cases against BP, is appealing in the 5th and the 11th U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals, hoping they’ll rule federal district judges have misconstrued the level of proof needed for toxic exposure cases. One of those judges said the issue is “very ripe for the Supreme Court to resolve.”

“It has a broader reach than the BP oil spill,” said Jason Clark, a Downs attorney. “If the burden is one that’s too high for any plaintiff to meet, then a lot of people who are exposed ... are never going to see justice.”

Meanwhile, Downs is talking to thousands of people interested in suing over illnesses such as cancer that emerged years after the spill, Clark said.

Sandler, the NIH epidemiologist, said the high burden of proof demanded by most judges means “people can’t win.”

“I think at the end of the day, did the oil from the oil spill make people sick? Yes,” Sandler said. “Now, courts may view this from a very different lens, but from a public health standpoint — yes, the oil spill made people sick.”

A crew member looks at the oil slick in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig collapse, Thursday, May 6, 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

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Once Praised, Settlement to Help BP Oil Spill Workers Leaves Most With Nearly Nothing

When a deadly explosion destroyed BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico, 134 million gallons of crude erupted into the sea over the next three months — and tens of thousands of ordinary people were hired to help clean up environmental devastation from the biggest offshore oil spill in U.S. history.

These workers were exposed to crude oil and the chemical dispersant Corexit while picking up tar balls along the shoreline, laying booms from fishing boats to soak up slicks and rescuing oil-covered birds.

Recognizing that some members of cleanup crews had likely become sick, BP agreed to a medical claims settlement two years after the 2010 disaster. Experts hailed it as “an extraordinary achievement” that would compensate workers fairly with little hassle.

But it hasn’t turned out that way.

The effort has fallen far short of expectations, leaving many workers who claimed lasting health effects stranded with little or no payment.

Through the settlement, BP has paid ill workers and coastal residents a tiny fraction — $67 million — of the billions the company has spent on restitution for economic and environmental damage . The vast majority — 79% — received no more than $1,300 each.

Many workers claiming illnesses from the spill were forced to sue — and they’ve fared worse. All but a handful of roughly 4,800 lawsuits seeking compensation for health problems have been dismissed.

Attorneys familiar with the cases say they are unaware of any that have gone to trial and know of only one that’s been settled. Former boat captain John Maas received $110,000 from BP for his lung ailments in 2022, according to a confidential copy of the settlement.

The repeated failures demonstrate how extremely difficult it is to prove to a court that a specific illness is caused by chemical exposure — even when those chemicals are recognized causes of illness more generally.

An Associated Press investigation that included dozens of interviews with cleanup workers, attorneys and experts, and a review of voluminous court filings revealed:

• A single switched word in the settlement prevented thousands of workers from receiving anything over the minimum of $1,300 each. To get more, they had to file individual lawsuits — an option that almost always led to defeat.
• Most federal judges hearing those cases required a level of proof connecting chemical exposure to worker illnesses that the lead government epidemiologist studying the spill says is likely impossible to meet.
• Big law firms representing dozens or even thousands of workers failed their clients in various ways. After BP accused one firm of manufacturing medical claims, its cases were dismissed in big batches.

Robin Greenwald, one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys who negotiated the settlement, said even her firm has not been able to win a single medical case against BP.

“I wanted people to get their day in court and they win or lose at trial,” said Greenwald, a former federal environmental prosecutor. “Let a jury decide. … But they weren’t even given the chance to do that.”

BP declined to comment for this story, citing ongoing litigation 14 years after the spill.

GETTING SICK

After the explosion on April 20, 2010, the spill was spectacular. A camera live-streamed the rupture on cable news, showing the world in real time gushing oil that wouldn’t stop. Oil floated on the Gulf and washed ashore, covering plants, birds and other animals.

To break up oil, roughly 1.8 million gallons of Corexit were dropped from planes and sprayed from boats — far more than previous U.S. oil spills. The manufacturer said it was safer than dish soap.

But lab research on human tissue and animals has revealed Corexit can damage cells that protect the airways and cause scarring that narrows breathing tubes, according to Dr. Veena Antony, a University of Alabama professor of pulmonary and critical care medicine who has studied Corexit’s effect on lung tissue. Over time, she said, the process can make it harder and harder to breathe.

“I genuinely believe that there was harm done and we didn’t realize the harm was being done — and now people are suffering,” said Antony, who testified as an expert witness in one suit against BP. “I would not, at the present time, put my hand even in Corexit without wearing double gloves.”

The current producer of Corexit, ChampionX, said the dispersant was pre-approved by the government for use on oil spills and the manufacturer had no role in deciding when or how to spray it.

Oil itself has long been known to cause illness. One of its toxic components is benzene , which can cause conditions ranging from skin irritation to cancer.

But now researchers, including Dale Sandler at the National Institutes of Health, are finding that spill workers exposed to amounts of oil assumed safe have suffered from dizziness, nausea, lung problems and heart attacks .

“The exposures on average were still pretty low,” said Sandler, an epidemiologist leading the GuLFSTUDY, a major effort to quantify workers’ exposure and track health woes over years. “What surprised us is that we did see a wide range of health effects that were associated with these exposures.”

Sandler said the study is the largest ever of an oil spill and is ongoing. “We’re looking at long-term risks like diabetes, cancer incidence,” she said.

What researchers have found so far is echoed by other studies, including one involving about 3,500 Coast Guard responders. The responders who reported breathing oil fumes were 40% to 50% more likely to have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease-like symptoms and sinus problems compared to those who said they didn’t breathe fumes. And responders who reported exposure to both oil and Corexit were more than twice as likely to suffer shortness of breath.

A PROMISING SETTLEMENT

Proving to a court that a specific person’s illness was likely caused by their exposure to oil or Corexit can be difficult.

Yet the settlement for medical claims was supposed to make it easier for workers: BP would agree exposure to the spill could cause a host of known health issues — and workers suffering from them could file claims for payment. Initially, attorneys advocating for the settlement said it could help as many as 200,000 possibly injured workers and residents.

The settlement also included $105 million from BP for regional health outreach and free health checkups for exposed workers every three years for 21 years.

But things quickly went awry.

The third-party administrator hired to handle claims, Garretson Resolution Group, initially rejected 78% of roughly 37,000 claims. After many were resubmitted, around 36% still were rejected and claimants received nothing.

Greenwald was especially frustrated her clients’ claims were repeatedly deemed deficient. “We had many a meeting with Garretson’s team to try to shake them loose of some of their narrow reading and obsession with deficiencies,” she said. “We clearly knew the claim form. We negotiated it.”

Matthew Garretson, founder of Garretson Resolution Group, defended his claims handling in an email, saying, “it was the process the parties agreed upon and we had to administer the settlement exactly in the way the parties’ Settlement Agreement mandated.” The company was paid roughly $115 million to $120 million for administering claims and for the outreach program and medical checkup effort as of 2018, he said.

There was a bigger problem.

At the most basic level, workers could submit affidavits attesting to their medical problems and collect $1,300 — and residents could collect $900. About 18,000 received that much.

Those with longer-term illnesses who had proof from medical tests could collect up to $60,700, or more if they had been hospitalized.

But few people had that proof. Forty of about 23,000 with approved claims collected the maximum award — less than 0.2%.

Many people lacked health insurance or easy access to a doctor and the required medical tests — a problem U.S. District Court Judge Carl Barbier, who approved the settlement, acknowledged in a hearing.

“Speaking for south Louisiana, I know — you’re dealing with people who are probably at the lower end of the socioeconomic scale. Most of these people, I feel sure, likely have no health insurance,” he said.

Even when people did seek medical attention, doctors untrained in treating chemical exposures often did not link illnesses to a patient’s cleanup work in medical records, according to Greenwald.

THE NATIONS CLIENTS

The Nations Law Firm, based in Houston, represented thousands of workers like Paul Loup IV, who helped clean an oil-contaminated beach in Pascagoula, Mississippi for several months.

Loup, 68, says he now has chronic respiratory issues, making it hard to stand or speak at length. He quit his job as a procurement manager because it involved too much travel.

The firm had wanted to help clients collect more than the settlement’s $1,300 minimum, so it developed a plan to obtain needed medical proof.

It was an assembly line. Out-of-state nurse practitioners who were paid $20 per plaintiff entered medical histories based on information the law firm — not a doctor — provided. Firm-designed forms listed illnesses that paid more under the settlement — and doctors could simply circle them. The forms included a statement linking a patient’s illness to oil spill work — with a line for the doctor to sign. Doctors didn’t keep their own patient records.

While such a process might seem suspect, firm founder Howard Nations said in an interview that he met with the claims administrator Garretson to try to develop an acceptable one.

Garretson rejected the claims — not based on the process, but on a deadline.

THE DEADLINE AND A SWITCHED WORD

The settlement was designed to make it easy to collect money for illnesses that surfaced quickly after crude oil exposure. People with diseases that can show up years later — such as cancer — would be forced to file individual federal lawsuits.

Early settlement drafts defined this second group as people with a disease that “manifests” after April 16, 2012. However, a later draft changed the word “manifests” to “diagnosed.”

In 2014, BP seized on that change to argue no one diagnosed after the deadline could receive an award for a long-term illness through the settlement.

That meant two people could have the same illness, but the one who got a diagnosis before the deadline could file a claim for compensation while the other would need to file a suit instead.

Judge Barbier said that’s not how he was led to believe the settlement he okayed would work.

“It is rather strange … that the court would approve a settlement, a class settlement that really doesn’t settle thousands of claims and requires them to file another lawsuit,” Barbier said at a 2014 hearing. “I mean, it doesn’t sound like much of a settlement.”

BP attorneys said any other interpretation would invite fraud, allowing opportunistic law firms to pay for a medical diagnosis after the deadline to get a settlement claims payout. They also said the word change was requested by the workers’ own attorneys, and Stephen Herman, co-lead counsel for plaintiffs’ attorneys, testified they didn’t recall how it happened.

Despite his doubts, Barbier said he had to follow the settlement language.

His ruling forced thousands of workers out of the relatively easy administrative claims process into federal courts throughout the South.

THE FEDERAL LAWSUITS

The ruling was devastating for Nations clients whose only option was to file federal lawsuits.

After BP attorneys alleged in Mississippi federal court that the firm manufactured medical diagnoses, Nations agreed to dismiss its cases by the dozens. In an interview, Nations did not deny BP’s allegations but said the cases were unwinnable without an adequate expert witness.

Loup, the former beach cleanup worker, said he didn’t know until informed by a reporter last year that his case had been dismissed years earlier. “I call (Nations) every six months or so … and they’ve just said it’s going to take some time,” he said.

Another Nations client was Jeff Herring, the deckhand of Maas, the boat captain believed to be the only person whose case reached a settlement.

When their boat was sprayed with Corexit, Herring started throwing up so badly an ambulance was called to pick him up. Although released from the hospital after a few days, he developed chronic sinus and respiratory problems, according to his lawsuit.

Months later, a doctor at an oil spill medical station referred him to a specialist, and he was hospitalized again, said Herring, now 39. An X-ray found spots on his lungs, and he was supposed to go to New Orleans for further testing but never did.

“That would have took another two weeks being in a hospital over there,” he said. “I couldn’t because I had to get back to work.”

Noting he had no insurance, Herring said he received about $8,000 through the claims process — not enough to even pay hospital bills.

Herring’s suit was thrown out in 2020 along with 235 other Nations cases, but he said he wasn’t told.

Howard Nations said the firm communicated with clients about the status of their cases and although the individual suits were dismissed, he intends to go back to Judge Barbier with new arguments.

EXPERT WITNESSES

Other law firms met a different obstacle:

Workers filing individual lawsuits have to prove they were exposed to enough oil or dispersant to — more likely than not — cause their illness.

The workers’ experts relied on studies, such as those from the National Institutes of Health and the Coast Guard, that found people exposed to oil and Corexit were more likely to develop certain illnesses.

But BP’s experts maintained workers needed to show exactly how much oil and dispersant they had inhaled or ingested and that it was sufficient to cause their sickness.

Greenwald, the attorney who helped craft the settlement, said meeting such a standard is almost impossible: “I mean, ‘How deep did you breathe? Right at the moment you were standing there, was the wind blowing?'” she said. “What mortal human would be able to testify about that?”

Most judges have sided with BP, rejecting workers’ experts as unreliable and effectively ending the cases.

Sandler, the NIH epidemiologist, said its researchers went to great lengths to develop data on exposure like nothing ever been done before. “I’m not sure that they’ll ever meet the standards that the court is imposing on what constitutes evidence,” she said.

It also can be difficult to find an expert witness who knows the science but doesn’t have a conflict of interest through work with the oil industry.

The Falcon Law Firm brought on Jerald Cook, a retired Navy physician trained in occupational and environmental medicine, as an expert on numerous cases. He was rejected again and again by judges as BP poked holes in his professional history and work.

“Your report really doesn’t balance the evidence favoring your conclusions with the evidence that disfavors your conclusions; isn’t that fair?” a BP attorney asked Cook in a deposition.

“Yeah. I think that’s — that’s fair,” Cook replied.

He declined comment, and Falcon did not reply to requests for comment.

Some law firms that took on hundreds of cases have simply buckled under the strain, begging judges for more time so their overloaded experts could produce reports.

LOOKING FORWARD

It’s not completely over.

The Downs Law Group, which has lost hundreds of cases against BP, is appealing in the 5th and the 11th U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals, hoping they’ll rule federal district judges have misconstrued the level of proof needed for toxic exposure cases. One of those judges said the issue is “very ripe for the Supreme Court to resolve.”

“It has a broader reach than the BP oil spill,” said Jason Clark, a Downs attorney. “If the burden is one that’s too high for any plaintiff to meet, then a lot of people who are exposed … are never going to see justice.”

Meanwhile, Downs is talking to thousands of people interested in suing over illnesses such as cancer that emerged years after the spill, Clark said.

Sandler, the NIH epidemiologist, said the high burden of proof demanded by most judges means “people can’t win.”

“I think at the end of the day, did the oil from the oil spill make people sick? Yes,” Sandler said. “Now, courts may view this from a very different lens, but from a public health standpoint — yes, the oil spill made people sick.”

The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment.

Top photo: Workers head to the beach to clean up oil residue in Grand Isle, Louisiana, on May 30, 2010. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

Topics Energy Oil Gas

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BP paid just $1,300 each to 79% of the Deepwater oil spill victims because of a single switched word in the multibillion-dollar settlement

When a deadly explosion destroyed BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico, 134 million gallons of crude erupted into the sea over the next three months — and tens of thousands of ordinary people were hired to help clean up environmental devastation from the biggest offshore oil spill in U.S. history.

These workers were exposed to crude oil and the chemical dispersant Corexit while picking up tar balls along the shoreline, laying booms from fishing boats to soak up slicks and rescuing oil-covered birds.

Recognizing that some members of cleanup crews had likely become sick, BP agreed to a medical claims settlement two years after the 2010 disaster. Experts hailed it as “an extraordinary achievement” that would compensate workers fairly with little hassle.

But it hasn’t turned out that way.

The effort has fallen far short of expectations, leaving many workers who claimed lasting health effects stranded with little or no payment.

Through the settlement, BP has paid ill workers and coastal residents a tiny fraction — $67 million — of the  billions the company has spent on restitution for economic and environmental damage . The vast majority — 79% — received no more than $1,300 each.

Many workers claiming illnesses from the spill were forced to sue — and they’ve fared worse. All but a handful of roughly 4,800 lawsuits seeking compensation for health problems have been dismissed.

Attorneys familiar with the cases say they are unaware of any that have gone to trial and know of only one that’s been settled. Former boat captain John Maas received $110,000 from BP for his lung ailments in 2022, according to a confidential copy of the settlement.

The repeated failures demonstrate how extremely difficult it is to prove to a court that a specific illness is caused by chemical exposure — even when those chemicals are recognized causes of illness more generally.

An Associated Press investigation that included dozens of interviews with cleanup workers, attorneys and experts, and a review of voluminous court filings revealed:

—A single switched word in the settlement prevented thousands of workers from receiving anything over the minimum of $1,300 each. To get more, they had to file individual lawsuits — an option that almost always led to defeat.

—Most federal judges hearing those cases required a level of proof connecting chemical exposure to worker illnesses that the lead government epidemiologist studying the spill says is likely impossible to meet.

—Big law firms representing dozens or even thousands of workers failed their clients in various ways. After BP accused one firm of manufacturing medical claims, its cases were dismissed in big batches.

Robin Greenwald, one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys who negotiated the settlement, said even her firm has not been able to win a single medical case against BP.

“I wanted people to get their day in court and they win or lose at trial,” said Greenwald, a former federal environmental prosecutor. “Let a jury decide. … But they weren’t even given the chance to do that.”

BP declined to comment for this story, citing ongoing litigation 14 years after the spill.

GETTING SICK

After the explosion on April 20, 2010, the spill was spectacular. A camera live-streamed the rupture on cable news, showing the world in real time gushing oil that wouldn’t stop. Oil floated on the Gulf and washed ashore, covering plants, birds and other animals.

To break up oil, roughly 1.8 million gallons of Corexit were dropped from planes and sprayed from boats — far more than previous U.S. oil spills.  The manufacturer said  it was safer than dish soap.

But lab research on human tissue and animals has revealed Corexit can damage cells that protect the airways and cause scarring that narrows breathing tubes, according to Dr. Veena Antony, a University of Alabama professor of pulmonary and critical care medicine  who has studied Corexit’s effect  on lung tissue. Over time, she said, the process can make it harder and harder to breathe.

“I genuinely believe that there was harm done and we didn’t realize the harm was being done — and now people are suffering,” said Antony, who testified as an expert witness in one suit against BP. “I would not, at the present time, put my hand even in Corexit without wearing double gloves.”

The current producer of Corexit, ChampionX, said the dispersant was pre-approved by the government for use on oil spills and the manufacturer had no role in deciding when or how to spray it.

Oil itself has long been known to cause illness. One of its toxic components is  benzene , which can cause conditions ranging from skin irritation to cancer.

But now researchers, including Dale Sandler at the National Institutes of Health, are finding that spill workers exposed to amounts of oil assumed safe have suffered from dizziness, nausea,  lung problems  and  heart attacks .

“The exposures on average were still pretty low,” said Sandler, an epidemiologist leading the GuLFSTUDY, a major effort to quantify workers’ exposure and track health woes over years. “What surprised us is that we did see a  wide range of health effects  that were associated with these exposures.”

Sandler said the study is the largest ever of an oil spill and is ongoing. “We’re looking at long-term risks like diabetes, cancer incidence,” she said.

What researchers have found so far is echoed by other studies, including one involving about 3,500 Coast Guard responders. The responders who reported breathing oil fumes  were 40% to 50% more likely  to have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease-like symptoms and sinus problems compared to those who said they didn’t breathe fumes. And responders who reported exposure to both oil and Corexit were more than twice as likely to suffer shortness of breath.

A PROMISING SETTLEMENT

Proving to a court that a specific person’s illness was likely caused by their exposure to oil or Corexit can be difficult.

Yet the settlement for medical claims was supposed to make it easier for workers: BP would agree exposure to the spill could cause a host of  known health issues  — and workers suffering from them could file claims for payment. Initially, attorneys advocating for the settlement said it could help as many as 200,000 possibly injured workers and residents.

The settlement also included $105 million from BP for regional health outreach and free health checkups for exposed workers every three years for 21 years.

But things quickly went awry.

The third-party administrator hired to handle claims, Garretson Resolution Group, initially rejected 78% of roughly 37,000 claims. After many were resubmitted, around 36% still were rejected and claimants received nothing.

Greenwald was especially frustrated her clients’ claims were repeatedly deemed deficient. “We had many a meeting with Garretson’s team to try to shake them loose of some of their narrow reading and obsession with deficiencies,” she said. “We clearly knew the claim form. We negotiated it.”

Matthew Garretson, founder of Garretson Resolution Group, defended his claims handling in an email, saying, “it was the process the parties agreed upon and we had to administer the settlement exactly in the way the parties’ Settlement Agreement mandated.” The company was paid roughly $115 million to $120 million for administering claims and for the outreach program and medical checkup effort as of 2018, he said.

There was a bigger problem.

At the most basic level, workers could submit affidavits attesting to their medical problems and collect $1,300 — and residents could collect $900. About 18,000 received that much.

Those with longer-term illnesses who had proof from medical tests could collect up to $60,700, or more if they had been hospitalized.

But few people had that proof. Forty of about 23,000 with approved claims collected the maximum award — less than 0.2%.

Many people lacked health insurance or easy access to a doctor and the required medical tests — a problem U.S. District Court Judge Carl Barbier, who approved the settlement, acknowledged in a hearing.

“Speaking for south Louisiana, I know — you’re dealing with people who are probably at the lower end of the socioeconomic scale. Most of these people, I feel sure, likely have no health insurance,” he said.

Even when people did seek medical attention, doctors untrained in treating chemical exposures often did not link illnesses to a patient’s cleanup work in medical records, according to Greenwald.

THE NATIONS CLIENTS

The Nations Law Firm, based in Houston, represented thousands of workers like Paul Loup IV, who helped clean an oil-contaminated beach in Pascagoula, Mississippi for several months.

Loup, 68, says he now has chronic respiratory issues, making it hard to stand or speak at length. He quit his job as a procurement manager because it involved too much travel.

The firm had wanted to help clients collect more than the settlement’s $1,300 minimum, so it developed a plan to obtain needed medical proof.

It was an assembly line. Out-of-state nurse practitioners who were paid $20 per plaintiff entered medical histories based on information the law firm — not a doctor — provided. Firm-designed forms listed illnesses that paid more under the settlement — and doctors could simply circle them. The forms included a statement linking a patient’s illness to oil spill work — with a line for the doctor to sign. Doctors didn’t keep their own patient records.

While such a process might seem suspect, firm founder Howard Nations said in an interview that he met with the claims administrator Garretson to try to develop an acceptable one.

Garretson rejected the claims — not based on the process, but on a deadline.

THE DEADLINE AND A SWITCHED WORD

The settlement was designed to make it easy to collect money for illnesses that surfaced quickly after crude oil exposure. People with diseases that can show up years later — such as cancer — would be forced to file individual federal lawsuits.

Early settlement drafts defined this second group as people with a disease that “manifests” after April 16, 2012. However, a later draft changed the word “manifests” to “diagnosed.”

In 2014, BP seized on that change to argue no one diagnosed after the deadline could receive an award for a long-term illness through the settlement.

That meant two people could have the same illness, but the one who got a diagnosis before the deadline could file a claim for compensation while the other would need to file a suit instead.

Judge Barbier said that’s not how he was led to believe the settlement he okayed would work.

“It is rather strange … that the court would approve a settlement, a class settlement that really doesn’t settle thousands of claims and requires them to file another lawsuit,” Barbier said at a 2014 hearing. “I mean, it doesn’t sound like much of a settlement.”

BP attorneys said any other interpretation would invite fraud, allowing opportunistic law firms to pay for a medical diagnosis after the deadline to get a settlement claims payout. They also said the word change was requested by the workers’ own attorneys, and Stephen Herman, co-lead counsel for plaintiffs’ attorneys, testified they didn’t recall how it happened.

Despite his doubts, Barbier said he had to follow the settlement language.

His ruling forced thousands of workers out of the relatively easy administrative claims process into federal courts throughout the South.

THE FEDERAL LAWSUITS

The ruling was devastating for Nations clients whose only option was to file federal lawsuits.

After BP attorneys alleged in Mississippi federal court that the firm manufactured medical diagnoses, Nations agreed to dismiss its cases by the dozens. In an interview, Nations did not deny BP’s allegations but said the cases were unwinnable without an adequate expert witness.

Loup, the former beach cleanup worker, said he didn’t know until informed by a reporter last year that his case had been dismissed years earlier. “I call (Nations) every six months or so … and they’ve just said it’s going to take some time,” he said.

Another Nations client was Jeff Herring, the deckhand of Maas, the boat captain believed to be the only person whose case reached a settlement.

When their boat was sprayed with Corexit, Herring started throwing up so badly an ambulance was called to pick him up. Although released from the hospital after a few days, he developed chronic sinus and respiratory problems, according to his lawsuit.

Months later, a doctor at an oil spill medical station referred him to a specialist, and he was hospitalized again, said Herring, now 39. An X-ray found spots on his lungs, and he was supposed to go to New Orleans for further testing but never did.

“That would have took another two weeks being in a hospital over there,” he said. “I couldn’t because I had to get back to work.”

Noting he had no insurance, Herring said he received about $8,000 through the claims process — not enough to even pay hospital bills.

Herring’s suit was thrown out in 2020 along with 235 other Nations cases, but he said he wasn’t told.

Howard Nations said the firm communicated with clients about the status of their cases and although the individual suits were dismissed, he intends to go back to Judge Barbier with new arguments.

EXPERT WITNESSES

Other law firms met a different obstacle:

Workers filing individual lawsuits have to prove they were exposed to enough oil or dispersant to — more likely than not — cause their illness.

The workers’ experts relied on studies, such as those from the National Institutes of Health and the Coast Guard, that found people exposed to oil and Corexit were more likely to develop certain illnesses.

But BP’s experts maintained workers needed to show exactly how much oil and dispersant they had inhaled or ingested and that it was sufficient to cause their sickness.

Greenwald, the attorney who helped craft the settlement, said meeting such a standard is almost impossible: “I mean, ‘How deep did you breathe? Right at the moment you were standing there, was the wind blowing?'” she said. “What mortal human would be able to testify about that?”

Most judges have sided with BP, rejecting workers’ experts as unreliable and effectively ending the cases.

Sandler, the NIH epidemiologist, said its researchers went to great lengths to develop data on exposure like nothing ever been done before. “I’m not sure that they’ll ever meet the standards that the court is imposing on what constitutes evidence,” she said.

It also can be difficult to find an expert witness who knows the science but doesn’t have a conflict of interest through work with the oil industry.

The Falcon Law Firm brought on Jerald Cook, a retired Navy physician trained in occupational and environmental medicine, as an expert on numerous cases. He was rejected again and again by judges as BP poked holes in his professional history and work.

“Your report really doesn’t balance the evidence favoring your conclusions with the evidence that disfavors your conclusions; isn’t that fair?” a BP attorney asked Cook in a deposition.

“Yeah. I think that’s — that’s fair,” Cook replied.

He declined comment, and Falcon did not reply to requests for comment.

Some law firms that took on hundreds of cases have simply buckled under the strain, begging judges for more time so their overloaded experts could produce reports.

LOOKING FORWARD

It’s not completely over.

The Downs Law Group, which has lost hundreds of cases against BP, is appealing in the 5th and the 11th U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals, hoping they’ll rule federal district judges have misconstrued the level of proof needed for toxic exposure cases. One of those judges said the issue is “very ripe for the Supreme Court to resolve.”

“It has a broader reach than the BP oil spill,” said Jason Clark, a Downs attorney. “If the burden is one that’s too high for any plaintiff to meet, then a lot of people who are exposed … are never going to see justice.”

Meanwhile, Downs is talking to thousands of people interested in suing over illnesses such as cancer that emerged years after the spill, Clark said.

Sandler, the NIH epidemiologist, said the high burden of proof demanded by most judges means “people can’t win.”

“I think at the end of the day, did the oil from the oil spill make people sick? Yes,” Sandler said. “Now, courts may view this from a very different lens, but from a public health standpoint — yes, the oil spill made people sick.”

The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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