WHAT SPILL?:

The Gulf of Mexico's Seafood Rebirth a Year After the BP Oil Spill: One year after the BP oil disaster, marine life is thriving in the Gulf of Mexico and fishermen and state officials are optimistic about the summer season. But locals still battling health problems are angry at the oil giant’s failure to meet its commitments (Rick Outzen, 4/18/11, Daily Beast)

The largest man-made environmental disaster in U.S. history, struck the Gulf Coast on April 20, 2010, when the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded nearly 50 miles off the Louisiana shore, costing 11 men their lives. It would be September 19 before the spill was completely stopped, and U.S. government data show that 4.9 million barrels of oil leaked before the well was capped. At the time, many feared one of the richest eco-systems in the world, the Gulf of Mexico, would take decades to recover.

But a year on, predictions that the gulf would become a dead sea have proven premature. Seafood in the region is thriving as the first anniversary of the explosion approaches. Commercial-fishing and charter-boat captains from Galveston, Texas, to Apalachicola Bay, Fla. are optimistic that their businesses will have a great summer after six years of battling hurricanes Ivan, Dennis and Katrina—and the spill.

Scientific research is giving Gulf seafood a clean bill of health.

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