NEW ORLEANS (CN) - A study of dolphins living near the site of the Deepwater Horizon rig shows that marine mammals have serious health problems from the oil spill, and a second study links the disaster to the death of once-vibrant Gulf coral reefs.
In a report last week that calls dolphin strandings in the Northern Gulf "unprecedented," the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said many dolphins who live near the site of the Deepwater Horizon are underweight, anemic and suffer from liver and kidney disease. Nearly half also have abnormally low levels of hormones that help with stress response, metabolism and immune function, the study found.
The NOAA began the study in 2011 to chart the effects of the BP oil spill.
According to NOAA data, 675 dolphins have been stranded since February 2010 - two months before the oil spill.
The report calls the strandings "significantly higher than normal," and says that under normal circumstances roughly 74 dolphins strand a year in the Northern Gulf.
In Louisiana alone, the average annual number of dolphin strandings from 2002-2009 was just 20.
Yet "2011 had 159 strandings in Louisiana, almost 8 times the 2002-2009 historical average," according to the report.
"These increased strandings are part of an Unusual Mortality Event for the entire northern Gulf which includes all dolphin and whale strandings between the Panhandle of Florida and the Louisiana/Texas border," the NOAA report states. "Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana stranding rates have been higher than historic levels since the spill occurred and continue to be high in 2012."
While most stranded dolphins have been found dead, scientists have found and studied 32 live dolphins living in Barataria Bay, which is a few miles from the site where the Deepwater Horizon exploded and sank on April 20, 2010, killing 11 and sending nearly 5 million barrels of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico.
The report states that the "dolphins' symptoms are consistent with those seen in other mammals exposed to oil, but the study is not yet complete. Assessment efforts continue in Barataria Bay and in other coastal areas of Louisiana and Mississippi. A final report of study results for the Barataria Bay dolphins is expected in the next six months. Final results for other areas will take longer, because new samples are still being collected."
And though BP and the Coast Guard declared Barataria Bay cleaned of oil, photos taken in March and published in the Times-Picayune show new sheens of Macondo well oil in the wetlands.
'"These are places where we absolutely need long-term monitoring,'" Olivia Watkins, a spokeswoman for the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, told the Times-Picayune in an email describing the Barataria Bay photos.
Watkins told the paper that warm weather is causing oil to bubble up in the areas that had been deemed cleaned.
When cleanup efforts stopped last fall, the Coast Guard promised to act promptly to any new oil sightings. So far neither the Coast Guard nor BP has responded to the new oil.