Five Years Later: Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill More Than A Memory

On April 20^th, 2010 the BP Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded causing 4.9 million barrels of oil to gush from the seafloor of the Gulf of Mexico for 87 days.  Wildlife photographer, Daniel Beltrá spent two months documenting the event. The images he captured resulted in his collection SPILL:  Images of the Gulf, a program sponsored by the Baum Foundation and promoted through an exhibition in 2013.  The images from SPILL garnered Beltrá numerous awards, including Wildlife Photographer of the Year, and have become the iconic imagery of the disaster

Since the event in 2010 Mission Blue, a global initiative of the Sylvia Earl Alliance, has continued to provide information and research on the impacts of the Deepwater Horizon environmental disaster on the Gulf of Mexico and Mission Blue’s own Deep Reefs Hope Spot that has been affected by the spill.  A recent study confirms a tar mat the size of Rhode Island still exists near the site of the Deepwater Horizon blowout.

On the five year anniversary of the spill, the oil covered pelicans and visible oil slick have disappeared from the public eye, but Beltrá’s photography reminds us of the tragedy and Mission Blue informs us of the long term impacts that remain unknown and the continued research to find both areas of ongoing concern as well as areas of resilience in the ecosystem.

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