Original subtitles

Narrator: April 20, 2010. 9:49 pm.

The deepwater horizon oil rig

Explodes in the gulf of mexico.

Oil pours out uncontrolled.

Ltd russel l. Honore: 87 days that

Well spewed oil into the gulf.

Sambhav sankar: This was without any doubt the largest oil spill

Disaster of modern times.

Narrator: How could a catastrophe

On this scale happen?

Antonia judhasz: It soiled 700 miles worth of coast.

It killed countless species.

It sickened tens of thousands, if not more, people.

Brenda dardar robuchaux: The spill had a devastating impact

On our community.

Narrator: We hear from those who survived.

Leo lindner: It's hard to talk about.

Gordon jones, he was going to have a baby.

He and his wife are expecting little max.

The guy was 28 years old.

Narrator: And those who uncovered

The truth behind the disaster.

Steven chu: There were enough early signs

That something was going wrong, but those signs were ignored.

Mark davis: They were engaged in a really high risk undertaking,

And the margins for error were slim.

They gambled, and they lost.

Narrator: The investigators stories reveal a series

Of catastrophic failures.

Richard a. Sears: There were opportunities to get

Control of the situation.

Those opportunities were missed.

Narrator: In-depth analysis and investigative reports

Expose crucial errors.

Mark davis: This had become a faith-based operation.

Ltd russel l. Honore: It does make me angry,

Because that's a failure in leadership,

Which led to a loss of life and a loss of a coastline.

And that's a crying damn shame.

Narrator: Failures of planning transform

An accident into a catastrophe.

Sambhav sankar: Nobody in the oil industry

Had a plan for a deepwater spill of this magnitude

In the gulf of mexico.

Steven chu: President obama said, chu, go down there

And help them stop the leak.

Narrator: The scale of the tragedy is underplayed.

Antonia judhasz: Bp tried to hide how much oil was

Being released from the well.

Narrator: We reveal the 10 fatal steps

That led to the deepwater horizon disaster.

Sambhav sankar: When a billion industry operating a facility

That costs a million dollars a day to run

Takes almost 90 days to stop something from happening,

I can guarantee that the reason is

They're making it up as they go.

[music playing]

Narrator: In 2010, deepwater horizon

Is a high technology billboard for

Cutting edge oil exploration.

It is drilling for oil in water so deep,

It isn't even anchored to the seabed.

Instead it floats in position a mile above the seafloor.

Antonia judhasz: Deepwater drilling

Became the sort of hallmark of the industry,

And still is this technological marvel, this ability

To go anywhere, to the deepest depths of the ocean, basically

The equivalent of space travel to go to these depths to drill.

Narrator: The gulf of mexico is central to bp's plans

To leverage this deep water technology.

Antonia judhasz: The gulf of mexico

Was considered one of the richest oil finds in the world.

The industry was discovering massive oil field

After massive oil field after a massive oil field.

Narrator: The industry brings in hundreds of thousands

Of jobs, many to the indigenous peoples

Of the region, who go on to suffer most in the disaster.

Brenda dardar robuchaux: We have a love-hate relationship

With oil and gas, and that's because of a lot of our people

Also work in the industry.

And so for generations, you were either a fisherman

Or you might have worked for the oil and gas industry.

Narrator: But oil drilling here is

Complex, expensive, and risky.

Yasmine ali: Accidents and incidents were fairly common

In the gulf of mexico.

So about once every two years, something

Would happen but nothing on, quite

On the scale of the deepwater horizon accident.

Narrator: When deepwater horizon explodes,

The oil industry's high tech dream is shattered.

Leo lindner: It was just a torrent of fire

Coming out of the center.

The whole rig was set on fire.

Narrator: A trail of critical mistakes

Leads to this disaster.

In September 2009, seven months before the explosion,

Bp's own safety report recommends suspending

Operations on deepwater horizon until vital safety

Issues are fixed.

But the rig goes back into service

Without fixing all of these issues.

Seven months later, it blows up.

Investigations into the tragedy identify failures

In bp's safety management as a key error

That leads to the disaster.

And bp already has history with exactly this kind of problem.

In 2002, a rig working for bp called the ocean king

Suffers a major accident.

Yasmine ali: On the 8th of August in 2002,

The ocean king experienced a blowout,

And drilling mud went everywhere.

Narrator: At 8:30 in the morning,

Drilling fluid erupts out of the rig's drill pipe.

35 minutes later, highly flammable methane

From a gas pocket 3 and 1/2 thousand feet below the seabed

Bursts out onto the deck.

Yasmine ali: All of the crew were evacuated,

But there was an explosion and fire on that rig.

Narrator: It takes two months and millions of dollars

To repair the ocean king, but then

There is a second accident.

Yasmine ali: Three months after that explosion,

Something similar happened.

So there was gas and mud coming out of the well,

Which looked like the well had failed to seal.

Narrator: Once again, the crew is lucky, and no one dies.

The official response to this double accident

Cites a chain of management and safety failings,

Erroneous chain of decisions, inadequate training

Of personnel, and inadequate planning.

Yasmine ali: There weren't really

Any serious ramifications.

The fine for the ocean king accident was about $41,000

Which is really not very much for an oil and gas company.

Narrator: At the time the fine is issued,

Bp's profits are $32 billion a year.

Yet despite the ocean king incidents,

Seven years later safety failures are

Still slipping through the net.

In September 2009, seven months before the deadly disaster, bp

Runs a safety audit of the deepwater horizon.

It picks up several major maintenance issues

And recommends rig operations are suspended immediately

Until they are fixed.

Yasmine ali: For an installation like the deepwater horizon,

Maintenance is pretty serious.

It's not just like fixing a shelf or changing a light bulb.

These are a lot of safety systems,

So making sure that they're maintained is absolutely vital.

And it's there to protect the people

On that rig and the environment that that rig is in.

Narrator: Five days after the audit,

The rig is put back into service without fixing

All the issues raised.

The audit also notes that one vital piece of safety equipment

Called the blowout preventer is 5 years

Overdue for recertification.

Mark davis: We put things into service more than people want

To know before it's ready, because that's

What the calendar said.

And most of the time, it doesn't go so badly.

Narrator: It's an attitude with a bad track record.

Mark davis: The titanic still had workers on board when it

Set sail on its maiden voyage.

Narrator: But why doesn't the federal regulators

Step in to make sure that critical safety work

Gets done immediately?

That is the next mistake.

Because in reality, one of the world's biggest

Heavy industries isn't being properly regulated

In the gulf of mexico.

Dangerous errors like deepwater horizon safety audit issues

Aren't flagged.

Ltd russel l. Honore: The company was basically operating

Unsupervised by the government.

It was based on trust.

Narrator: April 20, 9:49 pm,

The deepwater horizon drilling rig explodes.

The oil spill that follows becomes

The greatest environmental disaster in us history.

Antonia judhasz: I wasn't surprised to see

A deepwater disaster.

I was very surprised at the scale of what came next.

Narrator: The second mistake on the road to disaster

Can be traced back to weak regulatory oversight of the oil

Industry in the gulf of mexico.

Sambhav sankar: It's very difficult,

As we all know, to plan for the worst

When the worst rarely happens.

But that's the job of a regulatory system,

And we didn't have a functioning regulatory system.

Narrator: Over time like all gulf oil companies,

Bp is drilling further out and in ever deeper water

Chasing huge rewards.

Narrator: But the extreme drilling operations

On rigs like deepwater horizon have changed the landscape

Of oil production.

Mark davis: It's almost more akin to supporting

A space program,

Because people have to live and work in incredibly

Challenging environments.

Narrator: It's a mile down from the free

Floating deepwater horizon just to the sea floor,

And the crew is drilling a further

2 and 1/2 miles into the rock.

So a drill pipe almost the height

Of the tallest mountain in north america

Is hanging off the floating rig.

Sambhav sankar: The technology they were using

On the deepwater horizon was far more

Advanced than the technology used to put people on the moon.

Mark davis: To do the kind of work they do

Requires imagination, a degree of boldness,

And some combination of hubris and romance that most of us

Don't have.

But it also means you can't really trust those people

To make the decisions that are best for you,

Because they're gambling.

Narrator: The body responsible for keeping a lid on this risk

Taking is the us government's minerals management service

Or mms, but by 2010, the changing industry is

Racing ahead of the regulator.

Sambhav sankar: The oil industry's pace

Of technological advancement has been really significant,

And the government simply can't keep up.

Antonia judhasz: The mineral management service

Didn't have the manpower.

They didn't have the expertise.

Ltd russel l. Honore: How can the government have used

A permit to the company and not have the capacity

To observe what they're doing.

Narrator: And there's a fundamental conflict

At the heart of the mms that weakens it even further.

Mark davis: The government that was

Supposed to also be the regulator

Was also making money.

Antonia judhasz: Minerals management service

Did have as its directive trying to bring in as much income as

Possible through the sale of leases,

And its job was really to expand drilling.

Mark davis: It's been the second biggest source of revenue

To the federal treasury after income taxes.

It's big money.

So the minerals management service

Suffered from a multiple personality disorder,

And the pro-production personality

Was the dominant one.

Narrator: This weakness in the mms

Hands a lot of safety regulation to the oil industry

For rigs like deepwater horizon operating in the gulf.

Sambhav sankar: The oil industry operates

With supreme self-confidence in these environments in part

Because so much of what it does happens safely,

Happens without incident.

Mark davis: We proceeded as though

Bad things wouldn't ever occur.

This had become a faith-based operation,

A faith in the industry to have prevented

Bad things from happening.

And they came to, I think, actually

Believe that because it hadn't,

It was because of wisdom and good practice

As opposed to good fortune.

And I love being lucky, but luck's not enough.

Narrator: The mistakes are building.

There have been issues with bp's safety management,

And in the gulf of mexico, no one

Spots or is willing to look at the potential risks

Of operating without proper regulation.

Sambhav sankar: The government does do some inspections,

But they're few and far between, and they're not particularly

Probing or detailed.

Ltd russel l. Honore: 11 people dead, 87 days

Of oil flowing in the gulf.

Now thousands of people are sick from that oil,

Millions of sea life destroyed, no federal inspector on board.

What's wrong with that picture?

Narrator: But the mistakes don't end there.

The oil industry's costs are enormous.

A rig like deepwater horizon costs $1 million a day to run.

Later investigations believe commercial pressure

Plays a critical role in decisions

That lead to the disaster.

Sambhav sankar: So time is money in a very real way.

That time pressure is always a part of every operation.

Leo lindner: The stakes are so high that there is

A constant state of pressure.

It almost becomes like the background.

The constant application of pressure is always there.

Narrator: When disaster strikes, deepwater horizon is drilling

On a site named macondo in the gulf of mexico,

But exploratory drilling is unpredictable,

And the macondo site hasn't been playing ball.

Richard a. Sears: Drilling at macondo prospect

Was over time and over budget.

That happens.

It just happens.

This is the complexity of the earth.

You don't know what to expect.

Antonia judhasz: This is such a difficult well

One of the workers dubbed it the well from hell.

Leo lindner: Yeah, macondo was a particularly rough well.

By the day of the disaster on April 20, 2010,

Drilling is almost six weeks behind schedule

And $58 million over-budget.

That pressure for time, for speed, for safety

Are always intentions in every industry,

And they can be particularly acute in the oil industry given

The particularly high costs and the particularly high risks

Of some of the operations.

Narrator: Despite this, the later oil spill investigation

Finds no evidence that anyone has been told to risk safety

Decisions by speeding up.

Richard a. Sears: But still there were a lot of decisions

Made, and when you look at some of these decisions,

They tended to bias towards the less time, less costly option.

Now, it doesn't mean that they were

Always necessarily more risky, but it does look like at least

It's in the back of their mind.

It's not an explicit pressure.

Nobody's actually talking about it, but it's there,

And we all know it's there.

Narrator: According to the subsequent presidential

Investigation, almost half the deepwater horizon workers

Believe colleagues were nervous about speaking out

Over safety concerns.

Antonia judhasz: On the final court ruling on bp's liability

For causing the blowout, judge carl barbier in louisiana

Said that profit was all that mattered

In bp's decision-making, and that is what was accurate.

Narrator: The mistakes are stacking up.

Then on the day of the accident, another critical mistake

Is made.

No one realizes that the seal holding back

The flammable oil and gas at the bottom of the well has failed.

Leo lindner: The numbers looked right on paper, I suppose.

They showed almost utter confidence in that one plug,

And that was like the beginning of their problems.

Narrator: April 20, 2010, after 11 weeks on the macondo well

Site, deepwater horizon's crew is finally

Making preparations to move on.

Antonia judhasz: Deepwater horizon was only there

To drill a hole and then plug it and then move on

So that the production rig could come next, remove the cork,

And pull out the oil.

Leo lindner: It was a really tough well,

And I was looking forward to getting it cemented and done.

And I think the whole rig really felt that way.

Narrator: Before moving off, the crew

Must ensure that the explosive oil and gas has been

Contained at the bottom of the well

By a specialized cement seal.

Sambhav sankar: That oil that's deep under the ground

Is under tremendous pressure.

It wants to come to the surface, but you don't want it to come

Out in an uncontrolled way.

Narrator: The problem is that the plan

For the rig leaving macondo has changed

Three times in the last 10 days.

On the morning of the 20th just 14 hours

Before the fatal explosion, it changes for a fourth time.

Leo lindner: I woke up that morning

And really it all changed.

Procedures were always hectic, but this one in particular

Was almost frantic really-- a lot of last minute changes

To the plan.

It had to be a factor in moving forward into the disaster.

Narrator: The changes come so late

Their combined impact hasn't been assessed effectively.

Leo lindner: Usually you have at least a couple of days

Once the plan is finalized, and even small things might

Be changed but not big ones.

And these were all big changes.

It really didn't give time for people to assess the risk.

Narrator: In this hectic schedule on the evening

Of the 20th, the crew begins a critical procedure

To make sure the cement seal that keeps the oil

And gas in the well has worked.

It's called a negative pressure test.

Sambhav sankar: The negative pressure test always involves

Reducing the pressure inside the well

And seeing if the oil flows into the well

Or whether the cement that you put on the outside of the well

Holds the oil in place.

Narrator: The test measures the pressure of the well

From two different pipes.

Both should give the same reading.

Yasmine ali: There should be nothing leaking out,

So the pressure should be zero.

Narrator: But the pressure in one of the pipes keeps rising.

Steven chu: So something's wrong.

So they kind of looked at it, but they were behind schedule.

They're already come on. What's wrong?

Finish the job.

And finally, some engineers there said, oh, there's

This so-called bladder thing.

And other people say, what's that?

Said, no, no, no, I've seen it before, da, da, da.

Ok, uh-uh.

Narrator: The rising pressure is blamed on a phenomenon

Called the bladder effect.

The problem is there's no such thing as the bladder effect.

Leo lindner: I had never heard of a bladder effect.

I didn't understand it when I heard it,

But I thought maybe I was missing something.

Narrator: What the high pressure reading really means

Is that explosive oil and gas are now rising up the drill pipe

Towards the floating rig, and the crew

Doesn't realize it.

Sambhav sankar: That was the key moment,

The moment at which we went from a mistake to a disaster.

Narrator: Around 9:43 pm, a fountain of mud

Pours over the deepwater horizon's deck.

It's followed by a mass of flammable oil and methane gas.

Antonia judhasz: I did interviews with workers

Throughout the rig who would describe feeling

The gas literally move past them like a wraith moving

Through the rig.

Narrator: At 9:49 pm, the methane explodes.

Shrouded in flame, deepwater horizon drifts out of control.

This is when the next mistake comes into play.

A vital emergency device fails to work.

It's supposed to be the last line of defense

Against the catastrophic leak, but a court

Later finds that electrical failures render it useless.

Yasmine ali: The explosion on the rig was a disaster,

But the aftermath and what happened afterwards turn

This event into a catastrophe.

Narrator: Sitting a mile beneath the rig on the sea floor,

The 50-foot-tall blowout preventer also known as the bop

Is the last line of defense against major disasters.

Antonia judhasz: The blowout preventer

Is filled with a series of rams and metal devices

That are supposed to shear the pipe and lock in the well.

The blowout preventer is supposed to keep a blowout

From turning into a disaster.

Narrator: When deepwater horizon begins to drift,

The bop control cables are ripped away.

This should trigger automatic emergency shutdown systems.

Yasmine ali: If electrical power is lost from the rig,

They will kick in and actually close the well.

Because if the power is lost, then that

Suggests that something catastrophic has happened.

Narrator: There are two independent

Emergency control pods.

Either can trigger the bop, but on the day of the disaster,

Both failed to activate.

When the bop is later retrieved, one pod is found

To have been wired incorrectly.

The later court ruling found the other pod's battery was

Too flat to trigger the device.

Maintenance of the blowout preventer

Is one of the recommendations of bp's audit.

Later reports suggest that this never happened.

Antonia judhasz: The rigs are required

Every five years to bring in the blowout preventer

To have it tested.

Deepwater horizon had been out operating for 10 years

And had never had the blowout preventer tested.

Narrator: The blowout preventer is bp's final line of defense.

It isn't enough.

Antonia judhasz: The entire oil spill that happened afterwards

Might have been prevented if they

Had had batteries in the blowout preventer that worked.

Narrator: A chain of mistakes, misjudgments,

And bad management has created a disaster.

Now thousands of gallons of toxic oil

Are pouring into the ocean, and no one knows how to stop it.

Antonia judhasz: All of the major oil companies

In the world were all sitting around a table, and all of them

Essentially shrugged together and said,

Wow, we actually have no idea how to handle this.

Narrator: Following a chain of management, safety,

And engineering mistakes, the deepwater horizon drilling rig

Explodes in the gulf of mexico.

But a mile below the surface, there's an even

More catastrophic problem.

After the initial explosion of methane,

The blaze on board deepwater horizon

Is further fueled by the 700,000 gallons

Of diesel stored on the rig.

In the chaos, it's not immediately obvious

That the emergency cutoff systems have failed,

And the well is leaking.

Narrator: On the morning of the 22,

36 hours after the explosion, deepwater horizon sinks.

Sambhav sankar: If this blowout had happened,

And the crew had gotten it back under control within a day,

I don't think many people would have known

A whole lot about it.

The problem came when the rig blew up and sank.

Narrator: According to the president himself

On the evening following the sinking,

Bp is still assuring the government

That there is no leak.

The coast guard publicly expresses cautious optimism

That any leaks have been contained,

And there will be no environmental impact.

But they are wrong.

Ltd russel l. Honore: Don't believe the first reports.

We learned a long time ago in the army

The first reports are normally wrong.

Narrator: The grim reality is that the well is leaking.

The same morning the rig sinks, the coast guard

Reports a growing oil slick on the surface.

Sambhav sankar: You had what at first was a blowout that

Was happening on the rig continue down

At the bottom of the ocean.

Narrator: The well is spewing out oil uncontrollably fast.

It's known in the industry as a wild well.

The mistake is that for four precious days at the start

Of the disaster people haven't been

Planning for the full scale of the coming catastrophe.

Steven chu: When we first began to realize

The magnitude of this, I have to say, it wasn't instant.

I was watching the estimates coming from bp

About what was leaking out.

They were assuming that it was not so bad.

The industry, the regulators and the country and the world

Were caught flat-footed.

Narrator: Four days after the explosion,

Experts are trying to figure out what scale

Of leak they're really facing.

Steven chu: So initially, bp estimates were a thousand

Barrels a day, and then we later found

That it's more like 50,000 instead of one thousand.

Narrator: Almost the equivalent of the exxon valdez spill

Is being released into the gulf of mexico every four days.

Antonia judhasz: The scale was unimaginable.

Narrator: At the time, bp disputes any higher numbers.

But it was later alleged in court

That deleted texts recovered from an oil engineer's phone

Reveal that it was known during the disaster

That the spill rate was huge.

Antonia judhasz: Bp continually through the course

Of the disaster minimized and tried to hide how much oil was

Being released from the well.

Narrator: November 2012, bp pleads

Guilty to knowingly deceiving the government

Over the size of the oil spill.

Ltd russel l. Honore: We knew bp was lying about the amount

Of oil coming out once they started taking depositions

And people started talking.

Antonia judhasz: And there was many reasons

That bp wanted to do that.

One is it is charged a fine per barrel of oil spilled.

So the smaller the number, the lesser

The fine it's going to face.

Steven chu: Bp wanting to limit the damages.

They wanted to low-ball.

Narrator: Covering up the true scale of the spill

Is a mistake with far larger consequences

Than just a big fine.

Mark davis: It's, sort of, like if you're a fire department.

If no one tells you how big the fire is,

You don't know how many trucks to send.

Narrator: If they had known how bad it was early on,

The initial response might have been

Bigger and faster or maybe not.

Because one of the biggest mistakes of all

Is that literally no one has a clue how to stop it.

Sambhav sankar: Nobody in the oil industry

Had a plan for a deepwater spill of this magnitude

In the gulf of mexico.

Every oil industry person wanted to help bp cap the well,

And nobody could do it.

There was no plan.

Narrator: Despite the size of the leak,

There is initial confidence that the oil industry can handle it.

Antonia judhasz: The industry has said in their applications

To drill in the gulf of mexico that they could

Handle an oil spill three times larger

Than the deepwater horizon.

They knew how to stop the blowout.

They knew how to clean it up and that it certainly wouldn't

Damage the environment or reach the shore

In any significant way.

So when I first saw the photos of the explosion,

I really did believe that whatever was going to happen

Was going to be stopped.

Narrator: The oil industry does have techniques for sealing

Shallow underwater wells, but a mile down in the gulf of mexico

Conditions are very different.

Mark davis: We're working in environments where

When bad things happen,

Your ability to go in and fix it is nil.

It's almost like trying to fix things on the moon.

Narrator: It's cold and pitch black.

The pressure is 150 times greater than at the surface.

No one has really considered how to cap a leaking well

Under these conditions.

Narrator: All they can try are

Their well known shallow water solutions.

Yasmine ali: One of them was a containment dome,

Which is like an upside down funnel.

Steven chu: This is a huge thing that enveloped this blowup

Prevention platform, this 2 and 1/2 story high thing

Spewing oil gas.

And it's a loose funnel.

You have a pipe, and maybe you can slurp up

A large fraction of it.

Narrator: But because containment domes are not

Designed to work at the immense pressure thousands of feet

Below the surface, it fails.

Yasmine ali: The containment dome

Didn't work because of a phenomenon

Called hydrate formation.

So as gas comes out of the well, it crystallizes into ice

Essentially and blocks up the channel of this dome and just

Simply doesn't work.

Steven chu: It should not have been a surprise

That it would've plugged.

Hydrates are something that's known in the oil business.

They plug lots of oil lines.

It was really doomed to fail.

Antonia judhasz: And the oil just kept pouring and pouring

And pouring and pouring.

Narrator: 20 days after the disaster,

The white house is growing increasingly concerned.

The president approaches his energy secretary about it.

Steven chu: President obama came up to me

After a cabinet meeting, and he said, chu, go down there

And help them stop the leak.

So I said, yes sir.

Narrator: The only other way to quickly stop the leak

Is a so-called top kill.

It's a technique that sealed many oil wells in the iraq war,

But these were smaller and on land.

Steven chu: The idea is the oil is coming up.

We can force it down.

This would be great.

And then once you stop the flow, you won.

Narrator: Heavy drilling fluid and a collection

Of other material known as a junk shot are forced

Into the well to block it.

Steven chu: So they would first try some fluids.

They try little bits of foam rubber.

They tried golf balls.

Narrator: A step by step plan is agreed for a top kill.

But as soon as the first attempt fails,

The energy secretary is alarmed to discover

The engineers are starting to make it up as they go.

2:00 am in the morning, I throw a temper tantrum.

It went sort of like, wait a minute.

You guys promised you're going to follow the plan.

And I said, this is not the way to do things.

What's going on?

Now it helps if you're a cabinet member in those situations,

Because you can pick up the phone and call the president.

And so they said all right.

All right, we'll follow the plan.

Narrator: The agreed plan involves

Taking careful measurements of the pressure in the well.

They are alarmingly high.

Steven chu: In the morning,

We're looking at pressure measurements.

They were looking at pressure measurements,

And we don't think this is a good sign.

We think the well could be damaged.

Narrator: The pressure needed to force fluid into the well

Is so high, the well pipe could burst.

If the oil gets out into the surrounding rock,

They will never stop it.

In reality, top kill was never going to work,

Because bp was lowballing the real leak rate.

If one really knew how much oil and gas was coming up,

The idea of throwing stuff down to overwhelm

The stuff coming up would not have been tried.

Because this humongous amount of oil and gas coming up,

Nothing they put down, pieces of foam, drilling mud,

Anything could overwhelm that upward momentum.

Mark davis: Nobody had a plan, because nobody

Wanted to put one together.

It would have cost time.

It would have cost money, and it would

Have admitted that there were risks out there

That you needed to plan for.

Narrator: A catalog of mistakes causes this catastrophe,

But the underplaying of the scale of the leak

And the lack of a plan to cap deep water wells

Makes the disaster bigger and more far reaching.

And there are still two more mistakes

That make a bad situation much, much worse.

Four months after the tragic deepwater horizon explosion

Kills 11 oil workers, a complex drilling

Operation finally seals the leaking well

Permanently with cement.

The leak has spewed around 210 million gallons of oil.

Oil slicks have extended over more than 57,500 square miles

Of the gulf of mexico.

Antonia judhasz: You could see it on the ocean.

You could see it on the shore.

You could see it blanketing animals, all sorts

Of different species, and it just kept coming and kept

Coming and kept coming.

Narrator: Mistake number nine is that bp's cleanup plan

Is hopelessly flawed.

It makes the disastrous spill even worse.

Sambhav sankar: Neither bp nor much

Of the rest of the industry were paying serious attention

To spill or disaster containment plans,

Because they didn't think this could ever happen.

Narrator: A year before the disaster,

Bp submits a detailed 583-page spill response plan

To federal authorities, but the plan

Contains embarrassing mistakes.

Antonia judhasz: That plan was copy

And pasted from the arctic.

So it included things like how do you protect

Walruses from an oil spill.

So there are definitely walruses in the us arctic.

There are no walruses in louisiana.

Mark davis: I think out of sight, out of mind

Was precisely the foundation that these response plans had,

Which is whatever goes wrong will be experienced

By a small group of people and probably some critters that

No one's really looking after.

Ltd russel l. Honore: What the hell?

It's just the gulf of mexico.

Nothing but a bunch of fish out there.

Who the hell cares about the fish?

Narrator: Cleanup efforts deploy floating booms to contain

The oil slicks, but this technology hasn't really

Changed since it was used with very

Mixed results on the exxon valdez disaster

20 years previously.

And just like back then, it only partially contains

The deepwater horizon oil slicks.

Ltd russel l. Honore: They just threw money

At these small contractors to go out and try to put booms out.

It kind of looked like amateur hour.

Narrator: Bp also employs a chemical dispersant

To break the oil down, but no one has ever

Used it on a spill this big.

Antonia judhasz: Bp conducted a massive science

Experiment in the gulf.

They used the chemical dispersant corexit

In a manner and quantities in which

It has never been used before.

Narrator: It doesn't even get rid of the oil.

Antonia judhasz: The dispersant doesn't eliminate the oil.

It just disperses it.

So what it meant was that you sacrificed

The ocean for the shore.

You dispersed the oil out so that it covered

A greater amount of the ocean.

Narrator: Some of the dispersed oil droplets sink

Forming large subsurface clouds of oil invisible from above.

Mark davis: It was not just what happened at the surface,

But it was the entire water column, thousands of feet.

Narrator: And some of the mixed oil and dispersant sludge

Still makes it to shore.

Antonia judhasz: So this chemical goo

Would pour onto beaches, and it looked

Like excrement coming out of the ocean

And pouring onto the sand.

Ltd russel l. Honore: You could smell it.

It was like someone left a can of diesel open,

And I've spent 37 years in the army.

I know how to smell that.

You could smell the petroleum in the air

Constantly even with the breeze blowing.

That's how thick the dispersant was.

Narrator: The combination of oil and dispersant is catastrophic.

Antonia judhasz: It was known that the type of corexit

They used is a chemical toxin.

It's known that crude oil is a chemical toxin.

And what we then learned afterwards

Was that the combination of the two

Was more toxic than either item separately.

Narrator: Despite all this, by 2014,

Bp is claiming that the worst of the oil spill

Has been dealt with, but that leads to the final mistake.

The long-term impact of the spill on the environment,

On health, and on the local economy

Is bigger than anyone had imagined.

And it's still going on today.

Brenda dardar robuchaux: The spill had a devastating impact

On our community.

People were not able to go trawling.

The oyster beds were contaminated.

They stopped being able to sell any type of oysters,

Any type of seafood.

Narrator: The effects of the deepwater horizon oil spill

Have been long lasting and destructive.

In 2014, antonia judhasz got a firsthand look

At the ongoing damage.

Antonia judhasz: When we got down

To the bottom of the ocean, what we were supposed to see

Was a wealth of marine life that simply wasn't present.

What we saw instead was what I would describe

As more of a moonscape.

Anything that could get out of the way of the oil

Got out of the way, and everything

That couldn't was killed.

Narrator: Until 2010, entire communities

Along the gulf coast line had been reliant

On the abundant marine life.

Brenda dardar robuchaux: It was just heartbreaking

To see the sea life come ashore,

You know what I mean, to see the tar balls

Coming ashore, to see our fragile wetlands

Just inundated with oil.

Sambhav sankar: The fishing industry,

Both fin fish and shellfish, were decimated

As a result of the spill.

Brenda dardar robuchaux: It was really more challenging

For the younger generation.

They had children at home.

They had typical family bills to pay.

When your income totally stops, it's devastating.

You saw a lot of houses being repossessed, cars, boats.

Narrator: For many, the only work available

Is cleaning up the oil spill.

Ltd russel l. Honore: The people hardest hit by this disaster

Are primarily poor people, people trying to make

A living to feed their family.

And companies came in to hire day workers

To go out and clean up the oil dispersant

And to clean up the tar balls.

Narrator: The 1.8 million gallons of corexit oil

Dispersant is a known toxin.

Ltd russel l. Honore: We know that the us safety council had

Recommended to the companies that when the workers were

Exposed to the dispersant they should

Have protective uniforms.

Narrator: But some of the workers who carried out

The cleanup claim they were denied

Suitable protection against the chemicals they were handling.

Some cleanup workers have since been

Found to have toxic chemicals in their bodies.

Ltd russel l. Honore: That exposure

Has led to over 3,000 citizens seeking medical assistance.

Brenda dardar robuchaux: We see a lot of people who

Are no longer able to work, no longer able to provide

For their family.

And so people are still feeling the effects of it now.

Sambhav sankar: You can't put that much toxic crude oil out

In the environment and not have impacts

On people's lives and health.

Ltd russel l. Honore: This is destroying people

For an industrial purpose, to get oil.

Brenda dardar robuchaux: My dad never

Was compensated for his trawling, for his fishing,

Never was.

It still brings tears to my eyes after all these years

To see the impact they had on our family

And what they did to my dad.

And I mean, our family wasn't alone in the struggles,

And so the entire coast will never recover or get over it.

Narrator: In the aftermath of the disaster,

The federal regulator, the mms, is replaced by separate bodies

For revenue and enforcement.

In 2014, bp is once again allowed

To bid for oil and gas leases.

Leo lindner: Bp was supposedly punished, because it had to pay

A $20 billion settlement, right, but the government

Came right back and gave them a $15 billion tax credit.

I understand if a guy's selling crack, he gets life.

But if an oil company ruins the gulf,

They get a $15 billion tax credit.

I don't understand that mindset.

Narrator: Because of the world's insatiable demand for oil,

Deepwater offshore drilling continues today.

Some investigators believe little

Has changed since the disaster.

Sambhav sankar: My hope after the disaster was that somebody

Might read our report and say maybe we ought to kick

The tires a little harder.

In fact, 11 years later, I can say, nope.

Things just went back to the way they were.

Narrator: Many still living with the consequences of the spill

Feel the same.

Brenda dardar robuchaux: The sad part

Is it's just a matter of time before it happens again.

Will it be my generation?

Will it be my children's generation or my grandchildren?

We're going to face it again, because nothing's

Been really done to address it.

Antonia judhasz: I interviewed a scientist

Who said a thousand years from now people

Will go down to the bottom of the ocean, and they'll say,

Oh, this is where the deepwater horizon disaster happened,

That the oil that is at the bottom of the ocean

Is going to stay there forever, that the impacts

Will continue forever as well.

Because that oil washes to shore.

That oil interacts with species.

Brenda dardar robuchaux: Our youth are not

Going to be able to experience the beauty

Of what I grew up with.

They're not going to have those opportunities to be able to go

Out on a fishing boat and experience what I grew

Up experiencing with my dad.

Just they're not going to have the beautiful communities

Because of the impact of the oil spill.

Antonia judhasz: We will feel the repercussions

Of this disaster for as long as we're still able to be here.

[music playing]