What’s the damage, BP?

On May 5, 2010, about 80 people gathered at the Gulfport open pavilion on Boca Ciega Bay to hear an update from Pinellas GOP state legislator Jim Frishe on the giant plume of oil floating through the Gulf of Mexico — and slowly making its way toward the Sunshine State.

The world had learned of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill two weeks before, and the possible consequences for Pinellas County beaches chilled those who came out on that Wednesday night. Afterward, participants broke into small teams, agreeing to perform a variety of tasks in the coming weeks, such as phone banking, organizing volunteers, writing op-eds, social networking and raising funds.

Two years later, some of the worst fears about the oil spill did not come true (particularly in the Bay area). But there is still considerable ambiguity about what actually has happened to the Gulf, and ongoing debate about how much can be directly attributable to the 200 million gallons of oil that spilled into it after the Macondo well blowout.

St. Petersburg environmentalist Cathy Harrelson attended both events. Last month, on the two-year anniversary of the explosion, she began a press conference at Demens Landing by declaring, “The oil is still here and science continues to expose many of the unseen effects of the disaster.”

The National Wildlife Federation (NWF) reported in March that oil remains in various stages of weathering and decomposition in Louisiana’s wetlands, where on the surface it’s turned into tar.

Since April 20, 2010, more than 500 dolphins have been found stranded in the oil spill zone — four times the historical average. The NWF reports that April was the 26th consecutive month with above-average strandings, with higher mortality rates for dolphins in 2011 than in 2010, leading the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to call the length and severity of that trend “unprecedented.”

Researchers exploring seven miles from the spill source found dead and dying corals coated in a brown substance that was later chemically linked to oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill.

According to a report by the Surfrider Foundation, the Corexit that BP used to “disperse” the oil now appears to be making it tougher for microbes to digest the oil, and that the mix of Corexit and crude actually penetrates wet skin faster than dry skin.

And a recent batch of test results revealed the presence of oil in the bile extracted from fish caught in August 2011, a year after BP’s broken well was capped and nearly 15 months after it first blew out two years ago.

About 3 percent of the fish caught by a research team led by Steve Murawski, a marine biologist with the University of South Florida College of Marine Science, displayed gashes, ulcers and parasites symptomatic of environmental contamination.

But Murawski says he can’t positively attribute those physical maladies directly to the Gulf spill.

“We certainly have some indication that fish lesions are prevalent, and they’re probably higher in that Northern Zone than they are in other places in the Gulf, but that’s not the same as having a long-term monitoring program that says whether it’s going up or down,” Murawski tells CL, echoing a chief complaint of scientists still studying the ramifications of the spill. Such a monitoring system is on the wish list of a presidential commission that evaluated what Congress has done in the wake of the biggest manmade disaster in U.S. history.

But Murawski doesn’t necessarily agree that it will be years before we know the long-term effects of the spill on the Gulf. “I don’t think it’s a number of years. One thing in the prevalence of these fish lesions, if we go out and do a survey, a repeat survey this year or next, and the prevalence is going down, it’s very likely that we saw a single event” — like, for instance, the oil spill. But if the fish lesions persist for longer than that, he says, “then it’s likely that the major [factor] is something else.”

The conclusion of that presidential commission, by the way? They gave Congress a collective grade of “D.”

The 1990 Oil Pollution Act (passed after the Exxon Valdez spill) created the Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) process, which requires that researchers study the environmental harm done by the spill and enact remedies at the expense of the companies responsible. A year ago BP reached an agreement to provide $1 billion in funding, and 12 public meetings were held throughout the Gulf states and Washington D.C. in January and February about what projects would be funded.

In March, eight restoration projects were announced by the NRDA, two in Florida. A $5.7 million project will repair and build new boat ramps in Pensacola and Perdido Bay in the Panhandle. The other plan will help address beach erosion on Pensacola Beach.

Michelle Erenberg with the Gulf Restoration Network in New Orleans wasn’t impressed. She said that beach re-nourishment — taking sand and filling in parts of the beach that have washed away — isn’t “necessarily the best environmental solution to the problem of beach erosion.” Her group released a report last month criticizing the NRDA for not proposing any projects for restoring the marine environment.

One proposal that stands a chance of winning D.C. lawmakers’ approval would divide 80 percent of the fines incurred by BP among the five Gulf states — Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana and Texas.

That proposal, called the RESTORE Act, passed as an amendment to the Senate transportation bill by a vote of 76 to 22. It has also passed in the House — yet skepticism about that version is evident among Florida Democrats.

Senator Bill Nelson, a co-sponsor of the bill, calls the House version “an empty shell,” because he says the fine money would go into a trust fund to be determined later by a future Congress. Under the Clean Water Act, those funds could total anywhere from $5 billion to $21 billion.

Tampa Congresswoman Kathy Castor says the House RESTORE act has nowhere near the level of detail in its language as the Senate version. She also says that in the House version, more than 50 percent of the funds collected would go to Louisiana and Alabama, with the majority of Florida’s funding going to the Panhandle.

As co-chair of the Congressional Gulf Coast Caucus, Castor has led efforts in Congress to see the Gulf restored to pre-spill conditions. Calling the RESTORE Act flawed, she has been in communication with the Justice Department about entering into a direct legal settlement with BP and the other responsible parties involved.

She’s calling for something that the Oil Commission has also recommended — a Gulf of Mexico Observation System to monitor the Gulf, similar to ocean observing systems across the U.S. and its waters. Castor says it’s something that the Gulf has always lacked.

“Look across the U.S. The Great Lakes have gotten a lot of attention; they have a good monitoring system. Chesapeake Bay has gotten a lot of resources and the Coasts do well, but the Gulf of Mexico over the long term has really suffered from the lack of investment.”

The other major avenue through which BP can absolve itself of litigation is a proposed $7.8 billion settlement brought by more than 100,000 individual and business plaintiffs, expected to be one of the largest class action settlements in U.S. history. Attorney General Pam Bondi had objected to the suit, as it appeared to limit compensation to individuals and businesses along the state’s Gulf Coast, which would eliminate recourse for thousands of state residents.

Along Pinellas coast beaches in May of 2010 there was a palpable fear that the threat of an oil spill could doom tourism for years to come.

Keith Overton is president and chief operating officer of the Tradewinds Resort on St. Pete Beach, the largest hotel on Florida’s West Coast. He says the biggest factor that saved the tourist industry was the fact that the oil never hit Pinellas’ shores. He believes BP took way too long to fix the problem, but says they “are fixing it and have begun to start making businesses whole and replacing those lost earnings that took place during those years.”

Beginning last December, the giant corporation, which raked in nearly $26 billion in earnings in 2011, began running an ad called “Best Season” to promote tourism in the Gulf, featuring beaches, seafood and friendly faces. Though some critics called it unsavory propaganda, Overton says the advertising has been pretty effective.

In recent months several law firms have descended on the Bay area, telling local governments and businesses that they may have been deleteriously affected by the spill and that it’s not too late to file a claim.

In late February, 22 months after the spill, Michael Moore, a Jacksonville-based marketing consultant for Florida attorneys, visited the Ybor City Development Corporation’s monthly meeting and told members that local businesses with proof of loss could still cash in — even in areas like Ybor not directly on the Gulf.

Moore says he’s received plenty of responses from small business people unaware that they could collect from the crisis, specifically mentioning veterinarians, cab drivers, and haircut and salon locations. “You have to be able to demonstrate a loss, and it has to be directly tied to the tourist industry,” he says of the criteria involved.

Political junkies might remember in the months before the spill, then-incoming state leaders Mike Haridopolos and Dean Cannon held meetings across the state discussing the possibility of drilling for oil or gas immediately off the state’s coastline.

Those plans were shelved immediately after the spill, though a proposal by state Democrats Rick Kriseman, Dan Gelber and Keith Fitzgerald to ban the idea altogether never gained momentum.

Nevertheless, the incoming leaders in 2013, Senator Don Gaetz and Speaker Will Weatherford, have both said they have no interest in reviving the idea of drilling in state waters.

But drilling in the Gulf of Mexico has certainly not diminished. The Associated Press reports that at the beginning of this year there were more rigs in the Gulf designed to drill in its “deep water” — defined as 2,000 feet or deeper — than before the 2010 spill.

This article appears in May 3-9, 2012.