At the same time, scientists are worried. They cite significant declines in key health indicators such as the sea floor, dolphins and oysters. In interviews, dozens of Gulf experts emphasized their concerns, pointing to the mysterious deaths of hundreds of young dolphins and turtles, strangely stained crabs and dead patches on the sea floor.
Cain Burdeau, Associated Press/Google
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In this April 1, 2011 photo, Tulane University population ecologist Jessica Henkel sets up a net to catch migrating birds for blood, fecal and feather samples on Fourchon Beach in Port Fourchon, La., as part of a research project that is looking for long-term, not immediately lethal effects from the BP PLC oil spill on birds that stop along the Gulf Coast during their migration. “It's much easier to see a dead pelican on the beach” than it is to see more chronic population-wide effects, Henkel said. (AP Photo - Patrick Semansky)
Scientists judge the overall health of the Gulf of Mexico as nearly back to normal one year after the BP oil spill, but with glaring blemishes that restrain their optimism about nature's resiliency, an Associated Press survey of researchers shows.
More than three dozen scientists grade the Gulf's big picture health a 68 on average, using a 1-to-100 scale. What's remarkable is that that's just a few points below the 71 the same researchers gave last summer when asked what grade they would give the ecosystem before the spill. And it's an improvement from the 65 given back in October.
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A federal agency's practice of returning weakened dolphins to deeper Gulf of Mexico waters is thwarting efforts to probe dolphin deaths after last year's BP oil spill, scientists said on Saturday (April 16).
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The title of Andrea Peacock’s Wasting Libby: The True Story of How the WR Grace Corporation Left a Montana Town to Die (and Got Away With It) tells the gist of the story. What follows is a fact-packed, kaleidoscopic account of the author’s multi-year investigation of corporate malfeasance in a remote mining town in the northwest corner of Montana. The corporation is WR Grace & Co. The product it mined was vermiculite. And the element that poisoned Libby is a deadly type of asbestos called tremolite, which was released during the mining and processing of ore. To this day, Libby lives under threat that a cloud of asbestos-laden dust might waft over town whenever a big wind kicks up.
Yesterday (April 6) afternoon Sen. Klobuchar sided with polluters at the expense of Minnesotans’ health and our environment.
Update March 20, 2011: A Coast Guard officer with a command center in Morgan City, LA, said today the Coast Guard has confirmed that oil is not coming from the Deepwater Horizon well but that they have found what appear to be smaller oil slicks in the Gulf. Their investigation into reports of large oil slicks is continuing. Additional photos and information from pilots John Wathen and Bonnie Schumaker who flew over the area yesterday are expected to be released today.
I'm not sure I'll ever fully be able to grasp the twisted logic behind corporate culture in this country, as 
