The Deepwater Horizon aftermath

Surface burning of oil slicks during the Deepwater Horizon event.

Credit: David Valentine

Researchers have analyzed 125 compounds from oil spilled in the Gulf of Mexico to determine their longevity at different contamination.

The scientists have now analyzed long-awaited data from the Natural Resource Damage Assessment to determine the specific rates of biodegradation for 125 major petroleum hydrocarbons -- compounds from the oil that settled to the deep ocean floor when DWH's Macondo well discharged 160 million gallons. Through that analysis, the team found that a number of factors influence how long the impact of such an oil spill lasts. Their results appear in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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A Design To Stop Louisiana From Drowning By Adding Faucets To The Mississippi | Fast Company

Louisiana is drowning: Over the last eight decades, more than 2,000 square miles of land have disappeared underwater. When engineers sealed off the Mississippi River with levees to prevent flooding in the 1930s, they also cut off the river's natural process of building land.

Before the river was "channelized"—locked into an artificial path—it curved through the Delta dumping piles of sediment that slowly built up the ground and helped protect cities like New Orleans from storms. Now a new design, called Delta for All, proposes bringing that process back.

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The BP oil spill four years later | NBC News

Scientists are still trying to figure out the effects of the BP oil spill four years later. Presidential historian Douglas Brinkley discusses with Ronan Farrow.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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Bayou Saint John Marsh Creation Project | Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation

Most of the bayou is within the levee system around New Orleans, with a flood gate where it meets Lake Pontchartrain. In the spring of 2013, the Orleans Levee District will dredge a channel from the flood gate to the lake to improve water flow.  The Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation will beneficially use some of the dredged sediment to create a half acre of wetland along the banks.




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When Dreams become Reality: Glass Recycling Comes to New Orleans | WWNO

A lot of New Orleanians will tell you that the glass is half empty when it comes to glass recycling in this city. The question that drives everyone to drink is always ‘when is glass recycling coming?!’

The answer is always that it’s either too expensive to haul, too costly, a liability issue, or too cheap to manufacture to make it work… Until now...

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Watchdog group reports health problems from dispersant use during BP oil spill | NOLA.com

A dispersant plane was photographed April 27, 2010
passing an oil skimmer working to clean the
Gulf of Mexico oil spill. ( Associated Press archive)

Cleanup workers, doctors, divers and Gulf Coast residents interviewed by a Washington watchdog group have reported health problems from the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, including blood in the urine, heart palpitations, kidney and liver damage, migraines, memory loss and reduced IQ.

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New Orleans Earth Day Festival and Green Business Expo

The 2013 New Orleans Earth Day Festival and Green Business Expo will be held on Sunday, April 21 from 9:00 a.m.- 7:30 p.m. at Bayou St. John on Orleans Avenue.

New Orleans Earth Day Festival & Green Business Expo is unique. It’s the only event in the area focused exclusively on engaging the local community, environmental organizations and businesses around environmental sustainability. And, in the long term we believe our event has the potential to expand beyond New Orleans and become established as the premier sustainability event along the Gulf Coast.

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Hey, mister! Throw me some hydrochlorofluorocarbons! | The Lens NOLA

The Greening Mardi Gras conference scheduled for Tuesday evening will be a forum for discussion of ways to wallow in the delights of New Orleans in sustainable ways, reducing pollution and plastic imports while supporting the local artists and producers who are creating alternative throws. These homegrown artifacts are not just gentler on the environment, they’re a potentially fresh market for talented and entrepreneurial New Orleanians.

In all, about 25 million pounds of Mardi Gras beads are shipped to New Orleans each year, During the run-up to Carnival 2012, Beads by the Dozen owner Dan Kelly said his company would be importing about 8 million pounds of plastic beads, of which about 60 percent, or 4.8 million pounds, are thrown during the Carnival season.


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More gas bubbling to surface in Bayou Corne sinkhole properties | Examiner.com

More natural gas has been seen bubbling in the Bayou Corne community and nearby woods after heavy rains this month, the Advocate reported Saturday.

Assumption Parish's Cajun swampland settlement has been evacuated over five months since a large "sinkhole" developed and the Napoleonville Salt Dome began collapsing.


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BP settlement helps, but recovery requires more | USA Today

editorial: "BP is acknowledging responsibility for the lives lost when the rig exploded in April 2010. The company pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court ... to felony counts of misconduct or neglect in connection to the (11) deaths. ... Despite the guilty plea, the expectation is the company will argue that the oil spill was an accident. BP is trying to avoid being found "grossly negligent" under the Clean Water Act, and limit its liability to as little as $5 billion. A finding of gross negligence could increase the fines to $21 billion."

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An Urban Farm Puts New Orleans Teens to Work | National Journal

In a city that is perhaps the country’s most culturally rich, it is a bit surprising that the large city park in its heart is called, well, City Park. But don’t mistake the generic name for a place devoid of special activity.Indeed, at the heart of City Park is the much more colorfully named Grow Dat Youth Farm, which is developing a sense of responsibility, community, environmental stewardship, and service among city high school kids through the collaborative work of growing food.


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Feds approve plan to identify source of Gulf sheen | Bellingham Herald

Federal officials said late Friday they have approved a joint plan from BP and Transocean to identify the source of a sheen in the Gulf Of Mexico associated with the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

Officials said in a news release that the federal on-site coordinator approved the joint plan on Thursday. Coast Guard Capt. Duke Walker had required the plan, and federal officials informed BP and Transocean they might be held responsible for the costs of identifying the source and the cleanup.

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Corps of Engineers needs to fix MR-GO damage: Editorial | NOLA.com

Congress said in 2007 that it wanted the Army Corps of Engineers to pick up the entire cost of replacing wetlands destroyed by the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet. The corps is continuing to ignore that directive, however. Lt. Gen. Thomas Bostick, chief of the corps, insisted again last week that Louisiana should pay 35 percent of the $2.9 billion tab. State officials said the corps is demanding that the state sign a letter giving up its claim that the corps is required to pay the full cost. The state refused to capitulate, and rightly so...

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Another cement lawn, but this one gets cited by city inspector | The Lens NOLA

Neighbors may find it simply hideous. (Skateboarders may disagree.) But in a city as prone to flooding as New Orleans, leaving some open landscape to soak up rainwater is kind of a no-brainer.

The inspector’s report cites the “100-percent” front yard paving job and notes that it deviates from the plan submitted. The upshot: “No C of O until remedied.”

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Braithwaite neighbors speak out after report shows potential massive chemical spill | WWLTV

As he looks over the destruction of his own home, Jesse Schaffer remembers the harrowing days after Hurricane Isaac, when he rescued dozens of people by boat in the Braithwaite area.
And he can't forget what he experienced when he passed the Stolthaven storage facility.

Company officials said at least three tanks leaked during Isaac. Two contained base oil. The third contained a chemical called octene, said Steve Turchi, regional director for Stolthaven Terminals. Turchi said 218 metric tons of the substance leaked. In addition, more than 140 rail cars went off the tracks, 80 of which carried hazardous materials. By Thursday, 132 of the cars had been placed back on the rails.


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Hurricane Prep Failures in Every Sector of the Oil Industry | Louisiana Bucket Brigade

Hurricane Isaac was in the region for approximately three days, beginning on August 28th. During that time, over 100 reports about oil industry accidents were filed with the National Response Center (NRC), the federal single point of contact for oil spills. Some reports were filed by industry, others by eye witnesses. The following information is based on a review of all of the NRC reports filed.

Adjusting for reports that reported the same accident and irrelevant reports, there were 93 total accidents in the oil industry...

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Replanting Trees In New Orleans | NPR (blog)

More than 100,000 trees — including many beautiful live oaks and magnolias — were lost when Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005.

In response, Hike For KaTREEna — a nonprofit group dedicated to reforesting the Crescent City — was created...

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Bayou Corne sinkhole 'No natural radioactive materials' | WAFB

Scientists took samples from the giant sink hole in Assumption Parish Thursday to test them for naturally occurring radioactive material (NORM).

The Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) said because the slurry in Bayou Corne is near areas used for oil and gas exploration in the past, the presence of low levels of NORM is possible.

However, initial test results say there were no detectable levels for NORM...
WAFB 9 News Baton Rouge, Louisiana News, Weather, Sports

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Images of Disappearing Coastal Wetlands | Best of New Orleans

One of the side benefits of the St. Claude Arts District's latest export, the hot new indie movie Beasts of the Southern Wild, is that it immerses viewers in the precariousness of life along Louisiana's steadily sinking coastal wetlands. Further investigations into this lacy, tattered patch of land also can be found in two noteworthy museum shows. At the New Orleans Museum of Art, multimedia artist Katie Holten created a series of very large drawings of the rapidly eroding edges of marshes where grasses are consumed by the sea at an alarming rate...

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Coalition offers vision for Gulf restoration ‎| Houston Chronicle

More than two years after the catastrophic BP oil spill, environmental groups say billions of dollars the British oil giant is expected to spend on restoration should go toward buying tens of thousands of acres of coastal land for conservation, rebuilding Louisiana's eroding wetlands and creating nearly 200 miles of oyster reefs.

Under the Oil Pollution Act, companies must pay to restore areas fouled by a spill. The amount BP will have to pay is subject to ongoing litigation...

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