Five years after the BP-operated Deepwater Horizon disaster killed 11 workers, devastated coastal communities, and spewed hundreds of million gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico, recovery in the region is very much ongoing—even as the fossil fuel industry continues its push to expand its dangerous operations.

Tweets about #GulfSouthRising #BP5

Despite some restoration progress and new reforms to offshore drilling, such as increased safeguards for blowout preventers, “the Gulf continues to suffer from the impacts of the oil and gas industry and is vulnerable to future major drilling disasters,” writes Raleigh Hoke, communications director for the Gulf Restoration Network (GRN).

“My community and family live in dangerous conditions,” said Brooks Frederick, an activist from Houma, Louisiana who joined a Rising Tide action in New York on Monday. “No matter how much PR and greenwashing they do, the industry does not care about communities. You cannot serve profits and communities at the same time. We deserve a better future.”

Environmental and justice activists from Rising Tide gathered in New York on Monday morning to launch a week of action against the fossil fuel industry and to call on Governor Andrew Cuomo to reject a proposed natural gas facility on Long Island’s Port Ambrose. Along the Gulf Coast, communities also rose up to call for justice from BP and commemorate the lives that were lost on the day of the explosion. Those actions were charted on Twitter under the hashtag #GulfSouthRising and #BP5.

The lingering effects of the Deepwater Horizon spill have continued to emerge over the years. Last October, researchers found that approximately 10 million gallons of oil congealed on the ocean floor around BP’s Macondo well, where the initial explosion took place, forming a “bathtub ring” of pollution. In Barataria Bay, a string of islands that was one of the hardest-hit by the spill, dolphins are dying at a higher rate than normal and showing signs of oil poisoning, NPR reports. Scientists have also confirmed that the spill accelerated land loss in the area.

“Dolphin deaths continue, oil is still on the bottom of the ocean, tar balls keep coming up,” GRN executive director Cynthia Sarthou told NPR on Monday. “And nobody really is able to say what we may find in five years, 10 years. It’s really distressing to me.”

A report released last month by the National Wildlife Federation estimated that at least 20 species are still being harmed by the spill and that the full extent of the damage may not be seen for years or even decades.

Since the spill, BP has spent $27 billion in economic claims, fines, and restoration programs. It may also face a $13.7 billion fine under the federal Clean Water Act. But Gulf Coast residents say those penalties do not approach the damage the oil giant caused.

“We’re sleepwalking our way into future disasters and learning nothing from the past.”
—Miyoko Sakashita, Center for Biological Diversity”They have no earthly idea of what they destroyed,” Byron Encalade, president of the Louisiana Oysterman Association and native of Pointe a la Hache, a community in the southern part of the state, told the Guardian. “You could give my men $1m, but you took away a million-dollar lifestyle.”

BP has also tried to downplay the extent of the damage with its own report, released last month, which concluded that scientific data “do not indicate a significant long-term impact to the population of any Gulf species” and that the Gulf will recover easily due to its “natural resilience.”

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) dismissed the report immediately, stating, “BP misinterprets and misapplies data while ignoring published literature that doesn’t support its claims.”