14 DAY TRIAL // Earlier this week, oil and gas giant BP proudly announced that, together with the United States Coast Guard, it had successfully completed cleanup activities along the Gulf of Mexico's shoreline. Otherwise put, the company said that it was pretty much done cleaning up after the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
“The US Coast Guard today ended patrols and operations on the final three shoreline miles in Louisiana, bringing to a close the extensive four-year active cleanup of the Gulf Coast following the Deepwater Horizon accident,” BP wrote on its website on April 15.
Oddly enough, it turns out that the United States Coast Guard does not see things quite like this. On the contrary, Washington Post says that, just hours after BP's statements on the matter at hand, the Coast Guard stepped forward to stress that cleanup activities in the Gulf of Mexico were nowhere near done.
Talking to the press, Coast Guard Captain Thomas Sparks explained that the oil and gas giant had jumped the gun when announcing that cleanup was over. He argued that, although it was true that specialists were no longer patrolling the coast looking for oil, this did not mean that there was no more work left to do.
“BP does not speak for the Coast Guard, and we are a long way from the response being complete or for business as usual,” Thomas Sparks said, as cited by The Houston Chronicle. “From the Coast Guard's point of view, we're still doing active cleanup operations,” he added.
Not at all surprisingly, BP was quick to defend itself. Thus, the oil and gas giant explained that its press release on the matter at hand was not intended to mislead people, but merely let folks know that it had successfully ground-surveyed 4,400 miles (some 7,081 kilometers) of the Gulf's shoreline and had carried out cleanup activities on 778 miles (roughly 1,252 kilometers).
“We have never suggested the work of the US Coast Guard or BP is over. Our announcement Tuesday merely highlighted the end of active cleanup of the Gulf shoreline. We believe that is a very significant achievement that resulted from four years of sustained work,” BP spokesman Geoff Morrell said in a statement.
At the time the Deepwater Horizon disaster occurred back in 2010, about 200 million gallons (roughly 750 million liters) of oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico. According to several studies, it is likely that this oil will continue to affect marine ecosystems in this region for many years to come.