A year after the Deepwater Horizon well explosion, Carl Safina has put the events into a larger perspective. In his April release, “A Sea in Flames,” the head of the Blue Ocean Institute takes a look at the causes and effects of the disaster, focusing on the how BP decided to handle the 4.9 million barrel spill. This is not the first time Safina has shared his knowledge on a disaster. In 1989, he researched the Exxon Valdez spill, when one of the company's tankers hit a reef in the Prince William Sound. The Valdez spill, however, happened in a much more compact area, where damages were discovered sooner. The lasting effects of BP's disaster continue to unravel.
“A lot of questions remain, but where we are now is ahead of where people thought we'd be,” Safina said. “Most people expected it would be much worse.”
It was, and still has been, a treacherous time for those living on the Gulf coast and who rely on the area's resources for work. Great advances have been made to get the area back on track have been underway, but those efforts have had an additional impact on the environment, and 1,000 square miles over the spill site are still off-limits. Things have gotten better, Safina said, but there is still a long way to go.
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