BP Oil Spill

The administration approved BP's $5 billion Kaskida project in March, the company's first new oil field developed in the Gulf since 2010. The suit comes on the 16th anniversary of BP's Deepwater Horizon spill.

While the industry has been drilling in ultra-deepwater for years, 20K allows access to wells previously deemed too risky. They say the fallout of another large-scale spill could be catastrophic for the environment and coastal economies.

Oil company BP paid billions of dollars in damages, propelling ambitious coastal restoration projects across five states. Yet many who suffered health effects have struggled to have their cases heard.

The grant funds have been spread across public school districts, state colleges and universities in the eight-county region encompassing Bay, Escambia, Franklin, Gulf, Okaloosa, Santa Rosa, Walton, and Wakulla.

Meet five student scientists who were recognized for their studies on the Gulf of Mexico.

Rodney Boblitt’s job was to patrol the coastline looking for signs of oil. Today, he is among thousands of workers experiencing health issues and suing BP, but proving their conditions were caused by the oil spill has been challenging.

The absence of chemical signatures in some areas could indicate that repopulation is moving the water and sediment around, but marine chemistry student John Hilliard said he wants to continue his research.

Field research on the consequences of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill found that heart, vision and hearing damage caused to mahi mahi populations by even low amounts of oil can cut the chances of survival within a week to just half.

On the 50th anniversary of the passage of the Marine Mammal Protection Act last month, a group of scientists asked the federal government for protection and funds for recovery of Rice’s whales.

The project offers underrepresented students the opportunity to document climate change and the lingering BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill impacts from 2010.

Over the course of a decade, scientists looked into a strange phenomenon found in Gulf waters near the BP oil rig after the spill, and 12 expeditions were also mounted to collect environmental data.

A Sarasota congressman has recently filed two new bills affecting Florida- one regards federal red tide monitoring and the other would expand a moratorium on oil drilling.