If the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico from the Deepwater Horizon rig is not stopped soon it could be the final blow to an already dying Mississippi delta, environmentalists are warning.
The cost to BP of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, in terms of the clean-up, compensation for the fishing and tourism industries, and possibly punitive damages, could be $10bn (
Coast Guard officials were investigating reports on Friday morning that oil from a massive spill in the Gulf of Mexico had washed ashore overnight, threatening fisheries and wildlife in fragile marshes and islands along the Gulf Coast.
Houston: The US government intensified its response to a spreading oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, mobilising the military to try to avert an environmental disaster along the fragile coastline of Louisiana and three other Gulf states.
NEW ORLEANS: A BP executive on Thursday agreed with a U.S. government estimate that the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico could be pumping up to 5,000 barrels a day of crude into the ocean, far more than previously thought.
April 28: With a vast oil slick now within only 20 miles of the ecologically fragile Louisiana coastline, Coast Guard officials said they were considering a
President Barack Obama announced on Wednesday plans for a broad expansion of offshore oil and gas drilling in an effort to win Republican support for new proposals to fight climate change.
Obama, a Democrat, said his administration would consider new areas for drilling in the mid and south Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico, while
Coastal ecosystems are sensitive to changes in the quantity and lability of terrigenous dissolved organic matter (DOM) delivered by rivers. The lability of DOM is thought to decrease with age, but this view stems from work in watersheds where terrestrial plant and soil sources dominate streamwater DOM.
Brazil's prospects of becoming a leading oil producer increased yesterday when it emerged that a giant offshore field could be double the size of BP's discovery last week in the Gulf of Mexico.
