GuLF Study Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), part of the National Institutes of Health, and aims to recruit 55,000 of the 150,000 workers who volunteered or were employed to help clean up the spill. It is led by Dale Sandler, head of the NIEHS's epidemiology branch. The "Deepwater Horizon" oil spill was the world's largest accidental marine oil spill. It began on 20 April 2010 after an explosion on the "Deepwater Horizon", a drilling rig leased by BP to drill an exploratory well. Between then and 15 July, when the well was capped, over four million barrels of oil (around 170 million US
Deepwater Horizon oil spill nose. The spill had a strong economic impact to BP and also the Gulf Coast's economy sectors such as offshore drilling, fishing and tourism. Estimates of lost tourism dollars were projected to cost the Gulf coastal economy up to 22.7 billion through 2013. In addition, Louisiana reported that lost visitor spending through the end of 2010 totaled $32 million, and losses through 2013 were expected to total $153 million in this state alone. The Gulf of Mexico commercial fishing industry was estimated to have lost $247 million as a result of postspill fisheries closures. One study projects that the overall