Abstract
Abstract. From mid June 2010 to early August 2010, the white sandy beaches along Alabama's Gulf coast were inundated with crude oil discharged from the Deepwater Horizon well. The long-term consequences of this environmental catastrophe are still unfolding. Although BP has attempted to clean up some of these beaches, there still exist many unanswered questions regarding the physical, chemical, and ecological state of the oil contaminated beach system. In this paper, we present our understanding of what is known and known to be unknown with regard to the current state of Alabama's beaches in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Motivated by our observations of the evolving distribution of oil in Alabama's beaches and BP's clean-up activities, we offer our thoughts on the lessons learned from this oil spill disaster.
Highlights
“There are known knowns; there are things we know we know
On 10 February 2011, the OSAT-2 report was released to the public (Operational Science Advisory Team (OSAT-2), 2011)
This report attempts to address important information gaps in the December 2010 OSAT report; careful review of this document shows that it Published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union
Summary
“There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. The objective of this paper is to report our observations to-date on the current state of beaches in Alabama and summarize our understanding of what is known, what is known to be unknown, and what is truly unknown regarding the Deepwater Horizon impacts on the near shore environment.
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