December 27, 2016 — ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Six years ago, when the Deepwater Horizon disaster forced the federal government to close off vast tracts of the Gulf of Mexico to fishing, some commercial fisherman weighed anchor and tried their luck elsewhere. Others quit fishing to work for BP on the cleanup.
But exactly how many did which, and what impact that had on their finances, has never been gauged.
Now, thanks to a $1 million grant, marine scientists from the University of South Florida, the University of Miami and University of California will try to figure that out. They will examine data that they expect will help them understand how the oil spill affected fishermen economically.
The researchers hope to learn how many tried a new fishing area and how many worked on the cleanup, and which paid better.
The grant from the National Academies of Science would then allow them to create a computer model to calculate how future oil spills might hurt the fishing industry in other areas, said Steve Murawski, a USF fisheries biologist who has overseen numerous projects related to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster.
“Say five years from now there’s a proposal for drilling off Florida,” Murawski said. “We could make a projection that if there’s a spill, what would be the impact on the counties there.”
The Deepwater Horizon disaster began in April 2010 with an explosion that killed 11 crew members. The rig sank 5,000 feet to the bottom of the gulf and began gushing oil.
Because the leak happened so far from the surface, BP could not immediately shut it off. Underwater robots sent down to monitor the spill broadcast live footage of the oil gushing from the rig, footage shown around the world.