Deepwater Horizon Spill Study Slams Gov. Jindal’s Berms
In a scathing report issued on Dec. 16, the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill characterizes the effort to build berms to stem the onshore flow from the Macondo well blowout as a politically motivated measure that was ineffective at stopping the oil. Five months after the largest oil spill in U.S. history was capped, contractors are still constructing the sand structures on barrier islands off Louisiana’s coast.
The commission concluded that the berms do not survive a cost-benefit analysis because they blocked only 1,000 barrels of the five million barrels of oil that were released in the Deepwater Horizon spill, yet cost $360 million, a third of the money that BP committed to oil-spill response along the Gulf Coast. The report concludes that such berms should not be considered in future oil-spill disasters.