oil spill – Desdemona Despair

Fires burn and smoke pours into the night sky at the scene of an explosion at an illegal crude oil bunkering site at Abaezi forest, in Ohaji-Egbema Local Government Area of Imo state, Nigeria, 23 April 2022. More than 100 people lost their lives. Photo: REUTERS

April 24, 2022

“National disaster”: Blast at illegal Nigerian oil refinery kills more than 100 people – Nigerian President vows to clamp down on illegal refineries after “catastrophe”

YENAGAO, Nigeria, April 24 (Reuters) – Charred bodies were left scattered among burnt palms, cars and vans on Sunday after a weekend explosion which killed more than 100 people at an illegal oil refining depot on the border of Nigeria’s Rivers and Imo states. Flip flops, bags, and clothing belonging to those who died littered […]

Fisherman Walter de la Cruz sits on the shore of the oil-stained Cavero Beach, unable to fish after a spill in the Ventanilla district of Callao, Peru, 21 January 2022. De la Cruz, 60, is one of more than 2,500 fishermen whose livelihoods have been cast into doubt as a result of a large crude-oil spill by the Spanish-owned Repsol oil refinery on 15 January 2022. Photo: Martin Mejia / AP Photo

March 14, 2022

Peru’s “worst ecological disaster” slams small-scale fishing – “I saw the fruits of my livelihood destroyed. It’s like if you have a store and someone comes and sets it on fire.”

By Franklin Briceño 13 March 2022 CIUDAD PACHACUTEC, Perú (AP) – Walter de la Cruz scrambled down a large sand dune in the fog to reach a rock overlooking the Pacific Ocean, where he has fished for three decades. He cast a hook into the waters off Peru’s coast several times, with no luck. One […]

Aerial view of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig burning after an explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, off the southeast tip of Louisiana, 21 April 2010. Ten years after an oil rig explosion killed 11 workers and unleashed an environmental nightmare in the Gulf of Mexico, companies are drilling into deeper and deeper waters where the payoffs can be huge but the risks are greater than ever. Photo: Gerald Herbert / AP Photo

April 19, 2020

10 years after BP spill: Oil drilled deeper; rules relaxed – “I’m concerned that in the industry, the lessons aren’t fully learned — that we’re tending to backslide”

By Kevin Mcgill and Matthew Brown 18 April 2020 NEW ORLEANS (AP) – Ten years after an oil rig explosion killed 11 workers and unleashed an environmental nightmare in the Gulf of Mexico, companies are drilling into deeper and deeper waters, where the payoffs can be huge but the risks are greater than ever. Industry leaders and […]

Spatial cumulative extents of the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil spill. (A) Cumulative NESDIS anomaly daily composites integrated from 20 April 2010 to 21 July 2010. Daily fishing closures are marked with gray lines; the cumulative fishing closure area is marked with a thick dashed yellow line. The black star represents the location of the DWH blowout. (B) Cumulative value of daily average oil concentrations (ppb), integrated across the same time span as (A) and across water depths. Vertical depth layers are 0 to 1 m, 1 to 20 m, and in 20-m increments down to 2500 m. Sediment and water samples with higher-than-background concentration are marked in bright green and dark blue circles, respectively. Red crosses in (B) represent approximate locations of DWH-related oil detections reported in previous studies. Daily fishery closures are marked with black polygons; the cumulative fishery closure area is marked with a dashed thick polygon. AB, Apalachee Bay; DP, Deep Plume; EFS, East Florida Shelf; FK, Florida Keys; LC, Loop Current System; TXS, Texas Shores; WFS, West Florida Shelf. (C) Categorization of the modeled oil spill are as follows: (i) nontoxic, PAH concentrations above background level and smaller than 0.5 and 1 ppb at the surface (depth, 0 to 1 m) and in the water column (depth, >1 m), respectively; (ii) toxic-to-biota and invisible, PAH concentrations 0.5 to 17 ppb at the surface and above 1 ppb in the water column; and (iii) toxic and visible, PAH concentrations above 17 ppb. In (C), categories were computed according to maximal concentrations across time. (D) Duration of toxic concentrations across the domain. (E) LC50 of 12 experiments examining the photoinduced toxicity to blue crab (31), fiddler crab (33), mahi mahi (29, 30), red drum (32), and speckled sea trout (32) (for more details, see table S2). (F) The spatial extent of the toxic concentrations from (E); color codes in (F) are according to bar colors in (E), representing concentrations exceeding LC50. In (F), toxic PAH of 0.5 ppb was concentrations were considered for surface waters only (depth, 0 to 1 m). Graphic: Berenshtein, et al., 2020 / Science Advances

February 17, 2020

The toxic reach of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill was much larger and deadlier than previous estimates – “Large areas of the Gulf of Mexico were exposed to invisible and toxic oil that extended beyond the boundaries of the satellite footprint and the fishery closures”

By Darryl Fears 12 February 2020 (The Washington Post) – The spread of oil from the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico was far worse than previously believed, new research has found. As the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history approaches its 10th anniversary in April, a study by two University of Miami researchers […]

Squirrel monkeys (Saimiri sciureus) play in the trees, along the Yasuni river. Photo: Kimberley Brown / Mongabay

July 7, 2019

Heart of Ecuador’s Yasuni, home to uncontacted tribes, opens for oil drilling – “Their intentions are deceitful. What’s the real commitment the government is making to conserve this area?”

By Kimberley Brown 5 July 2019 QUITO, Ecuador (Mongabay) – Ecuador’s Yasuni National Park sits in a unique position on the equator, between the Andes mountain range and the Amazon rainforest, which has allowed a rich and distinct biodiversity to flourish. The region is surrounded by towering ceibo and mahogany trees, emblematic of the area, […]

April 16, 2019

Killing migratory birds has been a crime for decades, but not anymore under Trump – “It will unravel a lot of progress over the past several decades”

By Elizabeth Shogren 8 April 2019 (Reveal) – Under Republican and Democratic presidents from Nixon through Obama, killing migratory birds, even inadvertently, was a crime, with fines for violations ranging from $250 to $100 million. The power to prosecute created a deterrent that protected birds and enabled government to hold companies to account for environmental […]

March 26, 2019

Photo gallery: Exxon Valdez oil spill, 30 years later

By Johnny Simon 22 March 2019 (Quartz) – On 24 March 1989 the Exxon Valdez tanker ran aground and spilled nearly 11 million gallons of oil in Alaska’s Prince William Sound. It was the worst oil spill in US history until 2010, when the Deepwater Horizon disaster pumped nearly 20 times that amount into the […]

December 18, 2018

Former fossil fuels lobbyist to head Trump interior department – Top two U.S. environmental agencies now run by people previously paid by industry

By Emily Holden 16 December 2018 WASHINGTON, D.C. (The Guardian) – Ryan Zinke’s exit as interior secretary elevates a former lobbyist to the job, meaning the top two US environmental agencies will now be run by people previously paid by industry.The deputy secretary, David Bernhardt, will take over at least temporarily when Zinke steps down […]

December 17, 2018

Quoting The Lorax, court vacates Atlantic Coast Pipeline permit to cross national forests – “We trust the U.S. Forest Service to ‘speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues’”

By Julia Fair 15 December 2018 (Staunton News Leader) – A federal court has vacated an environmental permit that would have allowed The Atlantic Coast Pipeline to cross two national forests, according to a court opinion filed Thursday with the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. The opinion quotes Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax, saying: “We trust […]

December 10, 2018

Trump administration attacks landmark environmental rules – “An unprecedented rollback of Clean Water Act protections”

By Ellen Knickmeyer 7 December 2018 WASHINGTON (AP) – One after another, landmark U.S. protections for climate, air and land are in the crosshairs of the Trump administration as his agency leaders move past early fumbles and scandals to start delivering on a succession of promised environmental rollbacks. On Thursday, the Interior Department proposed easing […]