Today marks the one year anniversary of the Gulf Oil Spill, when an offshore drilling rig owned by Transocean and commissioned by British Petroleum called the Deepwater Horizon exploded killing 11 people and causing the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history.
Since the damaged well head was repaired in September, some 4.9 million barrels of oil leaked into the Gulf of Mexico negatively affecting residents, businesses, and the ecosystem of the coastline of five states. The incident has severely diminished the earning capacity of everyone living in the region, from fishermen to casino workers and babysitters. BP promised to do what it could to “make right†the situation and created a $20 billion spill response fund to be distributed by the Gulf Coast Claims Facility. But one year later, many of the affected have yet to receive restitution from BP, according to several organizations, including the Mississippi Center for Justice. First hand accounts collected in a recent NAACP reportalso suggest that BP is trying to evade some of its responsibility. Following are some of the issues that continue to plague Gulf Coast residents and businesses as they strive to rebuild and some of the progress the communities have made.Â
(Images: BP America;Eric Vance; File; Pete Souza; ThinkStock)
Marcia is a multimedia content producer focusing on technology at Black Enterprise Magazine. In this capacity she writes and assigns stories to educate readers about social media; digital integration; gadgets, apps, and software for business and professional development; minority tech startups; and careers in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics).
In 2012, she received two Salute to Excellence Awards from the National Association of Black Journalists and was recognized by Blacks in Technology (BiT) as one of the Top 10 Black achievers in the tech arena for 2011 at SXSW in Austin, Texas. She has spoken about technology on panels for New York Social Media Week, at The 2012 Rainbow/PUSH Wall Street Summit, as well as at Black Enterprise'ss Entrepreneurs Conference and Women of Power Summit. In 2011, SocialWayne.com chose her as one of 28 People of Color Impacting the Social Web, and through crowdsourcing she was listed as one of BlackWeb2.0's/HP's 50 Most Notable African American Tastemakers in Social Media and Technology for 2010. Since taking on the role of Tech editor in September 2010, she has conceived and produced five cover stories on Technology and/or STEM and countless articles, videos, and slideshows online.
