Five years after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded and sank into the Gulf of Mexico, scientists with an ocean research and exploration group have released a video of what the underwater site of one of the worst oil spills in history looks like today.
FuelFix.com reports the researchers with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution released video of their dive to the bottom of the Gulf to conduct a visual survey of the well head that spewed more than 3 million barrels of oil starting April 20, 2010.
Part of WHOI’s work on researching the disintegration of oil from the spill and the dispersants used to clean it up was funded by the $500 million that BP provided to Gulf of Mexico researchers in the wake of the spill.
In the video, the researchers show the wellhead of the Macondo well and the superstructure of the Deepwater Horizon platform.
On Monday, the Associated Press reported in an online interactive feature that plant and animal species in the Gulf are still struggling as a result of the oil spill, with marine researchers reporting an 11% decline in the overall health of the Gulf’s ecosystem.
Earlier today at the Capitol, U.S. Rep. Garret Graves, R-Baton Rouge, angrily told federal officials they should be more aggressive in cleaning up oil that he says continues to wash up on Louisiana beaches five years after the spill.
“I can take you out there any day you want to go and I can show you oil,” Graves told Interior Department officials at a House Natural Resources Committee hearing, Gannett Louisiana reports. “I think it’s absolutely ridiculous that we still have the volumes of oil that are out there today and that the Coast Guard and feds are not being more vigilant.”
Graves, former director of Louisiana’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, said the department could do much more to help the Gulf Coast recover from the 2010 spill.
BP could end up paying as much as $13.7 billion in fines for the oil spill. Oil field services firm Anadarko could also pay more than $1 billion for its role in the spill.
See the video of what the Gulf floor looks like five years on from the spill.
