The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is still polluting the environment  

A decade later…

The Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster was one of the largest environmental disasters in human history, with its effects not fully appreciated, since the oil spill it left behind continues to pollute the Gulf of Mexico a decade later. BP’s cleanup efforts were not enough and the oil is still detectable.

The sun and microbes changed the chemical and physical properties of the oil, affecting its toxicity, and over time it turned into an insoluble sticky film that covered the marshy areas of the Gulf.

As the oil ages, the residue becomes resistant to further rapid changes in its composition and this means that if not removed by clean-up efforts, the residue can remain in the environment for a long time, causing long-term effects in the affected areas.

Oil that was not cleaned up after the disaster found its way into ocean currents through winds and waves, and tides carried these chemicals to shore or deeper water.

The important thing about oil spills is that the components of oil are a type of material that can be broken down by sunlight and marine bacteria, unlike other pollutants such as pesticides. Oil spills release many chemicals quickly, and the most damage from them usually occurs immediately after the oil spill.

However, the damage doesn’t stop there. In 2020, undissolved elements were found in the Gulf marshes and being toxic, affected the wildlife there.

Surprisingly, we know very little about what happens to crude oil in the environment over many years, and certainly not enough to study how these changes affect animals and plants.

The oil spill continues to pollute the coast but not only. Researchers have found that it even affects bottom marine life, leading to very low reproductive rates in fish and dolphins.

The better we understand chemicals and their chemical reactions, as well as their physical properties, the better we can deal with oil spills and understand their environmental impacts. We hope this paper will help expand our understanding of the types of chemicals found in oil and their ability to wreak environmental havoc.

The research was published in Frontiers in Marine Science .