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| NYT: oiled pelican tries to fly |
Audubon tells
US that the
Deepwater Horizon disaster killed an estimated 600,000 to 800,000 coastal waterbirds in just the first three months of the prolonged oil spill. The scientific study used two different modeling methods and is the first public estimate of the damage down to the Gulf Coast ecosystem by British Petroleum. Government and corporate studies are not yet publicly available for comparison purposes. The study was conducted for two law firms representing clients with environmental claims against BP. As expected, the company criticized the findings as too high. Carcass to death ratios are
typically at 10 to 1 or lower, but
the study makes the case for a significantly higher ratiodue to factors like the sheer size of the area affected, scavenging, surface oil burning, and wind and ocean currents sweeping the area of carcasses. What cannot be disputed is that the Gulf Coast ecosystem was deeply injured by the spill and it will take decades to recover.
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| Audubon, Vicki Caligure |
Restoration efforts are taking place. The National Fish & Wildlife Foundation was entrusted with $2.6 billion to spend on projects in the five states affected. Audubon received some of that money for shorebird habitat restoration in Florida and Mississippi. More funding will be released later this year. The National Resources Damage Assessment will take years to complete, but hopefully it will be a through scientific review of the damage to the ecosystem. The polluter will be required to pay to restore the ecosystem to its state before the oil spill. The Clean Water Act violations are still be contested by BP because the are potentially very large--upwards of $15bn--depending on the outcome of the civil liability trial. The last trial phase is scheduled to begin in January, 2015. This will be a very expensive mistake for a polluter that tended to
scoff at environmental responsibility before their rig exploded in flames on April 20, 2010 killing eleven workers besides the huge numbers of defenseless wild creatures.