Скачать или смотреть Gulf Coast transformed 10 years after BP spill

(17 Apr 2020) The Deepwater Horizon disaster has reshaped the Gulf of Mexico coastline with a flood of post-spill spending across five states.
Offshore island restoration in Louisiana, shiny new double-decker ferries in Florida, and a new beachfront hotel in Alabama are among the projects funded with billions of dollars in payouts by the oil giant BP in the 10 years since the spill.
And the disaster has brought attention to the need to protect a marine environment that both drives the coastal economy and feeds millions of people.
Susan Stachowski, manager of the Pascagoula River Audubon Center in Moss Point, Mississippi, says more than a $1 million in BP payouts went toward a grant to create a new, sprawling education center showcasing the river's unique coastal watershed and the wildlife it supports.
Stachowski says the center moved from what was essentially a tiny "fish camp" to a sprawling modern raised building with anti-bird strike windows, an open-air ground floor, an indoor children's education area, indoor aquariums holding local species of turtles and fish, an art exhibition space and gift shop.
Surrounded by a native plant botanical garden full of chirping birds, the new center has storm management tools such as rain barrels and cisterns and a permeable gravel-pave parking and driveway surface.
Stachowski says that as awful as the spill was – BP's well ruptured off the Louisiana coast on April 20, 2010, killing 11 workers on the oil platform – the payouts have led to coastal restoration projects and educational opportunities for studying wildlife, the health of the Gulf, and best practices for the oil and gas industry.
Research continues into the spill's long-term impact on the health of animal and plant life, and as companies drill deeper and deeper for oil, some wonder if the exploration could lead to another disaster.
The spill marred miles of coastline from Texas to Florida. Birds were killed and coastal marshes that serve as nurseries for young fish and shrimp were slimed.
The seafood and tourist industries were decimated, along with local and state budgets that depended on tax revenues.
A federal judge in 2016 approved a $20.8 billion settlement that dictated payments by BP through 2031.
The money is spent through a framework approved by Congress in 2012.
Gail Griffith, a birder visiting the Pascagoula River Audubon Center from Asheville, North Carolina, says of the Gulf Coast's recovery: "I think it's come along very nicely, but I think there's a great deal more that BP and other oil industries should be doing to make up for their sins but also because they have a responsibility."

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