NOAA Fisheries is set to spend more than $210 million on restoration projects in the Gulf of Mexico to continue cleanup of the massive 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
The plans, which are slated to be published Thursday in the Federal Register, award money to 10 different initiatives associated with a range of conservation goals, from reducing turtle strikes from boats to habitat protections to fishing education programs.
The money for the programs in the 4th Open Ocean Restoration Plan comes from a federal consent decree with oil company BP, with restoration projects expected to receive up to $8.8 billion. BP was the operator of the Macondo well at the center of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, which was named after a floating drilling rig contracted to work on the project.
In April 2010, the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico — which Trump renamed the Gulf of America via executive order earlier this year — was engulfed by an explosion that killed 11 workers. That incident stemmed from a gas leak and caused some 4 million barrels of oil to spill into the Gulf over three months. It was the largest marine oil spill in U.S. history and resulted in the nation’s largest ever environmental damage penalties and settlements.
