A look back at the last month’s events and the spill’s impacts
to date On April 20, 2010, an explosion aboard the Deepwater
Horizon offshore oil rig killed 11 workers and marked the
beginning of what is now being called the largest environmental
disaster in America's history In the month since it began, the
BP oil spill has revealed the true cost of America’s addiction
to oil, and its effects have rippled from the shores of
Louisiana to the halls of Congress. As National Wildlife
Federation continues to build a comprehensive Gulf recovery and
restoration plan, here is a look back at the last month’s events
and the spill’s impacts to date: Eight times bigger than Exxon
Valdez (and growing) Purdue University Professor Steve Werely
has calculated the flow of the spill to be 70,000 barrels per
day (much higher than the now widely discredited official
estimate of 5,000 barrels a day), through scientific analysis of
recent video documenting the underwater oil leak. Based on this
estimate, the spill is already 8 tim