Seven years after the Deepwater Horizon disaster killed 11 people, spilled almost 5 million barrels of petroleum into the Gulf of Mexico, and demolished the reputation of an energy company and its CEO, the evidence suggests that oil companies operating in the region continue to downplay their impact on local ecosystems and communities.

 

Three Louisiana environmental organizations – DisasterMap.net, 350 Louisiana and the Louisiana Bucket Brigade – say there were 479 offshore oil accidents in the Gulf of Mexico last year. That amounts to about nine accidents a week. And 94 accidents were publicly reported during a particularly troublesome three-week period last fall.

 

The three groups worked together to cull publicly-available data from the U.S. Coast Guard. Those images were then evaluated by West Virginia-based SkyTruth, which estimated the volume of oil lost based on each spill’s sheen.

 

The results often revealed a huge discrepancy between what these companies reported and analysts’ assessment of the volume of oil lost to accidents and leakage.

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