Gulf of Mexico BP reached an $18.7bn settlement with the US government, the states of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, as well as 400 local authorities. To date BP's cost for the clean-up, environmental and economic damages and penalties has reached $54bn. According to the National Response Center, the oil industry has thousands of minor accidents in the Gulf of Mexico every year. On May 12, 2016, a release of oil from subsea infrastructure on Shell's "Brutus" oil rig released 2,100 barrels of oil. This leak created a visible 2 mile by 13 mile oil slick in the sea about 97 miles
Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies for the world’s ninth largest body of water; and establish a cohesive strategy for ensuring the Gulf of Mexico’s ecological and socioeconomic health and productivity. The second State of the Gulf of Mexico Summit held December 4–8, 2011, in Houston, Texas, highlighted the strong need for a platform to develop a shared vision of a healthy Gulf in the aftermath of the April 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill catastrophe. In order to formulate a roadmap for restoring the Gulf, government, NGO and academic experts addressed a broad range of issues including: loss of wetlands, hypoxia, coastal resiliency, ecosystem health, marine