In the Gulf, a long history of oil spills and cover-ups

In the Gulf, a long history of oil spills and cover-ups

from Grist by Brentin Mock

Oil and reeds washed up by Hurricane Isaac on West Ship Island, Miss., Sept. 4, 2012 When BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in 2010, it hemorrhaged roughly 210 million gallons of crude into the Gulf of Mexico. We know now, thanks to recent court hearings and settlements, that all this happened because oil company managers were cutting corners on safety, and the federal government’s monitoring system for offshore drilling was broken.
We also know that it wasn’t the first time oil companies had spilled in the Gulf. What we don’t know — and probably never will — is how much oil has been spilled. Even now, three years after the Deepwater disaster, many spills go unreported. And now we’re learning that even when companies report spills, they sometimes try to deceive regulatory agencies and the public into thinking their spills caused no harm to Gulf waters.http://grist.org/climate-energy/in-the-gulf-a-long-history-of-oil-spills-and-cover-ups/?utm_source=syndication&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feed