• Study: Dispersants used in Gulf oil spill could damage marine food web

    Coast Guard File / EPA

    An aircraft releases chemical dispersant over the oil spill from the Deepwater Horizon, off the shore of Louisiana on May 5, 2010.

    By Kari Huus, NBC News

    During the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, which dumped nearly 5 million barrels of crude into the water, responders applied some 1.8 million gallons of chemical dispersant to break up the oil slick.


    The chemicals, which were sprayed on the surface and pumped near the gushing pipe on the ocean floor, largely prevented the slick from saturating delicate coastal marshes, but they had their own environmental impact that scientists are only now beginning to understand.

    A study published Tuesday provides one possible piece to that puzzle, indicating that chemical dispersants of the type used in 2010 hurt microorganism populations that are a key link in the marine food chain, with dire implications for fish and larger sea animals.

    "Our study was interested in the tiny organisms that support the base of the food web," said Alice Ortmann, who led the study at Dauphin Island Sea Lab in Alabama. "These are the small things support all the big things in the ocean."

    The research conducted in a controlled lab setting showed that dispersants and dispersed oil "significantly reduced" the growth of phytoplankton and ciliates — essentially, fish food.

    It also showed that oil that was left alone — and thus degraded while floating on the water's surface — was found to cause no significant damage to these organisms.

    The study, published in the online science journal PLoS ONE, suggests one of the environmental trade-offs made in the disaster response.

    Dispersants are soap-like agents that break up oil slicks into smaller particles. Using them introduces some toxicity — albeit far less than oil, scientists agree. But in breaking up the oil, the dispersants can expose organisms in the water, while possible sparing those on the surface, like pelicans.

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    At the time of the disaster response, the large volumes of dispersants being applied sparked accusations that BP — the owner of the Deepwater operation — was trying to hide the oil from view for public relations reasons as much as out of environmental considerations.

    "We are still reviewing the study, but the state can say that the use of dispersants in the volume and conditions under which it were applied were unprecedented," said Garrett Graves, chairman of the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority of Louisiana. "We did raise objections to this application of dispersants during the spill, the unknown impact on our Gulf, and that we were being used as lab rats."

    That impact remains unknown, Ortmann said, because these findings were based on lab results.   

    "This is what we saw in our incubations," she said. "What happens out in the ocean we don’t really know yet."

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    Independent studies like this one will supplement a large, long-term effort called the Natural Resource Damage Assessment administered by federal and state trustees. The assessment is an attempt to account for all the damage caused by the oil spill to the environment and human activities that depend on it.

    "We’ll come up with a tab to say 'BP, you are responsible for this injury'," said Tim Zink, spokesman for NOAA, one of the federal agencies leading the effort. "The way they pay it back is through restoration projects" for shorelines, land protection and dunes and efforts to restore turtle or bird populations.

    About $60 million has been disbursed for initial restoration projects, even as the effort to assess the damage continues.

    A separate investigation by NOAA is looking into a dramatic spike in dolphin deaths — more than 720 from the time of the explosion in April 2010 to July 29 this year.

    NOAA report on dolphin strandings/deaths

    "Oil is being investigated as one of the key factors," said Tim Zink, spokesman for NOAA’s damage assessment and remediation efforts.

    Meantime, studies of live dolphin populations that were in contact with the oil in the Gulf have turned up troubling findings, including pulmonary issues, chronic low weight, anemia and low levels of hormones that could affect the animals' ability to survive, Zink said.

    Another recent study by a team of researchers published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in March has documented damage to coral in the vicinity of the broken well at a depth of about 4,000 feet, an ecosystem that normally would not be affected by oil spills.

    "The sheer magnitude of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and its release at depth make it very different from a tanker running aground and spilling its contents," said Haverford College chemistry professor Helen White, lead author of the study, who was cited in a report on the Penn State website.

    The Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the largest in U.S. history, occurred in one of the continent's most productive ecosystems. It dwarfed the 11 million gallons spilled by the Exxon Valdez tanker in Prince William Sound in 1989.

    "Fully understanding the short and long-term impacts of the explosion, oil and natural gas released, dispersants, and other factors is likely to take several years," said Graves.

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  • Judge: Leaning toward approving huge BP settlement in Gulf oil spill

    By Miguel Llanos, NBC News

    A judge on Wednesday said he was leaning toward approving the settlement proposed by BP and a coalition of plaintiffs' lawyers to compensate individuals and businesses for the 2010 Gulf oil spill.


    The plaintiffs' lawyers represent more than 100,000 individuals and businesses, but the proposal also has its critics -- among them shrimp processors, recreational fishermen and Halliburton, BP's cement contractor on the Macondo well.

    "I'm leaning in favor of doing it, but I'm not going to do that from the bench here today," U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier said during a hearing in New Orleans, the Times-Picayune reported.

    Barbier said that he intended to write a full order within a few days and that a final decision would not happen for several more weeks.

    While most of the proposal's compensation was not capped, BP has estimated its exposure at $7.8 billion. The oil giant and lawyers' coalition agreed on the terms last month in a bid to avoid a trial that could take years.

    The 2,000-page proposal would replace the Gulf Coast Claims Facility, which has managed claims so far, and is broken down into two categories:

    • Economic and property damages. Individuals or businesses in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, four Texas counties on the gulf and Florida's Panhandle and west coast may apply as long as they didn't take an earlier payment. Exceptions are: recreational fishermen, financial institutions, casinos, racetracks, oil companies and insurers.
    • Medical benefits. These may be sought by cleanup workers and people who live within a half mile of Gulf Coast beaches or a mile from Gulf wetland areas. "Certain respiratory, gastrointestinal, eye, skin and neurophysiological" conditions, such as "dizziness, headaches, fainting" would be compensated, according to a summary of the proposal.

    How much compensation an individual or business receives would be determined by complicated formulas based on various factors.

    Some other highlights:

    • The claims deadline would be April 22, 2014, or six months after the settlement's effective date, whichever is later.
    • Lawyers' fees were estimated at around $600 million and would not come from any funds set aside for victims.
    • An appeal process will be in place.
    • A $2.3 billion fund to compensate seafood fishermen is the only part of the proposal that is capped. Shrimp processors want to be included in the fund.

    Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., discusses damage from the BP spill.

    BP has already taken a $37 billion accounting loss for the spill but, even with a settlement, it still faces tens of billions of dollars of potential claims from the U.S. government and several gulf states.

    Clean Water Act fines alone could reach as high as $17.6 billion if gross negligence is determined.

    In addition, BP and Macondo partners Transocean, which owned the drilling rig, and Halliburton, which cemented the well, have sued each other.

    Halliburton also objects to the proposed settlement, saying it makes Halliburton "liable in part for settlement payments."

    Wednesday's decision comes a day after a former BP engineer, Kurt Mix, was arrested and charged with obstruction of justice. He's accused of having deleted hundreds of text messages about the size of the spill.

    Last Friday was the two-year anniversary of the worst U.S. oil spill, which was triggered when the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded on April 20, 2010, killing 11 workers and unleashing crude that wasn't fully contained until July 2010.

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  • Is BP on the hook for fish's sullied reputation?

    By Kari Huus, msnbc.com senior reporter

    After a major oil spill, there are birds to be washed, tarballs to be retrieved and tarnished reputations to be repaired. For seafood from the Gulf of Mexico, promoters say that will likely be a long and expensive road — a cost they expect BP to bear.

    “We’re going to need marketing dollars to get out of this hole,” said Ewell Smith, executive director of the Louisiana Seafood Promotion Board, a state entity that markets everything from oysters to tuna caught off state shores. “Our brand has been damaged badly. It may take up to five years to restore our brand. That’s a multimillion dollar, multiyear program to rebuild brand and consumer confidence.”

    Photo by Alex Ogle/AFP/Getty Images

    A seafood restaurant's sign lights up in New Orleans on July 23, 2010.

    BP gave the marketing group $2 million shortly after the Deepwater Horizon accident on April 20, but Ewell said he considered that “a sort of deposit.” The money has been used for crisis communication, seeking to assure the public that seafood from Gulf fishing areas that remained open was just fine.

    But restoring the Louisiana seafood brand long term will cost $20 million to $40 million, he estimates – and maybe more. In addition to marketing, the state government wants BP to pay for 20 years of seafood monitoring and other costs associated with winning back consumer confidence. In an April 29 letter, state officials requested a total of $457 million from BP to set the seafood industry right.

    “Public confidence in our industry is eroding,” said the letter, addressed to BP CEO Tony Hayward. This is evidenced by a recent USA Today poll, where 13 percent of those polled said they would not eat gulf seafood. This poll was taken before the images of coastal impact were seen on television, and we can only assume the damage is even worse today.“

    “We still haven’t had any action on it,” communications director for Lousiana's disaster recovery unit Christina Stephens said of the request.

    BP press officer Mark Proegler confirmed the company had received the request and said the company “is in dialogue with state officials on this matter.” He went on to note that ongoing testing has shown Louisiana seafood to be safe. “Also, we're also pleased to see the reopening of fishing areas,” Proegler added in his email response, referring to the state’s decision to reopen some of Louisiana’s commercial fishing waters. That’s a start to reviving the state’s commercial and recreational fishing industries, which collectively generate about $4 billion a year.

    What the Seafood Promotion Board is seeking, however, is the means to change the public perception that fish from the Gulf is contaminated, which history suggests can be big chore.

    The 1989 Exxon Valdez spill — which only affected Prince William Sound, a small portion of Alaska’s total commercial fishing area—nonetheless tainted the reputation of products from the whole state according to Ray Riutta, executive director at the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute.

    The state marketing organization spent $10 million a year for several years after the spill and brought in a public relations firm that specializes in crisis management to market Alaska seafood, he said. In addition, the state ran a rigorous testing program, said Riutta.

    But surveys of consumers in other states showed that it took three to five years to rebuild confidence in the safety of Alaska’s fish, Riutta said.

    “The impression (outside the state) was that all the fish in Alaska had oil on them,” he said. “The whole image of the state was tarnished by that and it took years to fix.”

    Smith, executive director of the Louisiana seafood board, said the pattern is similar now: People outside the state have the image of thick oozing oil etched into their minds, and don’t realize that many fishing areas were untouched by the slick.

    He wants to bring in some big guns to help change that perception.

    “We will work with celebrity chefs across the nation, and they will help us get the news out,” he said

    But long term, the job is more likely to involve relentless traditional marketing, said Smith.

    “We need to bore the consumer out of their minds with good news,” he said.

  • 'Where's the sense of urgency?'

    Despite reports saying that oil is dissipating from the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, local officials beg to differ and are pushing for continued commitment to the cleanup effort.

    Billy Nungesser, president of Plaquemines Parish, La., believes the cleanup effort is being prematurely scaled back even though oil is still showing up on the coast and the surface of the water.

    Photo distributed by Plaquemines Parish

    A large mass of oil in Barataria Bay, near Wilkinson Canal, is shown in this photo taken on Thursday. It was released by the Plaquemines Parish government to show that, in contrast to recent reports, there is still plenty of oil on the surface of the Gulf of Mexico.

    "They say they are not (pulling back) but already they have canceled catering contracts, they've stopped production of boom at factories," Nungesser said at a press conference Thursday.

    "We know there's a lot of oil out there," Nungesser said. "It's going to continue to come ashore, and we're going to hold their feet to the fire to make sure they're there until all the oil is gone out of the Gulf of Mexico before we pull all of the assets out of our parish."

    Retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the government's oil spill response chief, said at a separate briefing Thursday that oil has dispersed so much that it’s hard to spot.

    "We continue to conduct intensive surveillance in the post storm week looking for oil. As we have talked before it's more dispersed and harder to find."

    But Nungesser found that assessment hard to believe.

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    "Yesterday there was a flight where no oil was seen. I don't know how they took that flight, but they must have bobbed and weaved around the oil because in Plaquemines Parish there is oil all over," Nungesser said.

    His office released photos Thursday of a large stretch of oil in Barataria Bay, near Wilkinson Canal, showing three boats in the vicinity: one skimmer, one running through it, and a third nearby.

    "Once again, I’m disappointed that just when I thought we were getting better, there’s no boats out there to pick up this oil that is destined to land in the marsh and destroy more wetlands and more wildlife," said Nungesser. "Where’s the sense of urgency?"

    - NBC News Mary Murray and msnbc.com's Petra Cahill

  • Survey: Oil spill more traumatic than Katrina for Gulf residents

    By Mike Brunker, msnbc.com writer and editor

    The vast oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has been more traumatic than Hurricane Katrina for coastal residents, with 30 percent of those interviewed apparently suffering mild to serious psychological distress, according to a survey by a health care provider released Thursday.

    The survey of 406 Gulf Coast residents, conducted for the nonprofit Ochsner Health System, found that the mental health impacts from the BP’s Deepwater Horizon spill were greatest for residents of Louisiana, the young and the poor.

    Eighteen percent of Louisiana residents were suffering “probable serious” or “probable mild-moderate” mental illness based on the K6 psychological distress scale – more than double the rate found in a similar survey conducted in July 2007, two years after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit the state, the survey found. Fourteen percent of Floridians, 12 percent of Mississippians and 10 percent of Alabamans were similarly afflicted, it said.

    Hardest hit were residents earning less than $25,000 annually, 32 percent of whom appeared to have “probable serious” mental illness on the K6 scale, it said.

    Young respondents (22 to 44 years old) were in the same category, with money and work being the two biggest causes of their stress.

    You can read more about the survey by clicking here.

  • Washington Post: Taxpayers could help pay BP's $20 billion in claims

    Washington Post reporter Jia Lynn Yang reported Tuesday afternoon that BP plans to seek a tax credit of up to $10 billion from the U.S. government, or about half the amount it pledged to aid victims of the disaster.

    The company cites steep losses from the Gulf Coast oil spill.

    Yang dug the news out of the company's second-quarter earnings report that said it would record a $32.2 billion charge to reflect the costs of the spill.

    "Under U.S. corporate tax law, companies can take credits on up to 35 percent of their losses. For BP, that means a savings on its tax bill of about $10 billion," Yang wrote. "The credit could mean, however, that taxpayers will indirectly foot the bill for the $20 billion fund that BP launched to compensate people and businesses harmed by the disaster."

    Read the rest of the Washington Post report here.

  • Eco-warriors give London small taste of spill pain

    By F. Brinley Bruton, msnbc.com staff

    LONDON – As BP CEO Tony Hayward resigned under a cloud Tuesday, thousands of British motorists got an unexpected reminder of the oil spill that's wreaked havoc in the Gulf of Mexico.

    Protesters with the environmental group Greenpeace said they shut off fuel supplies at 46 BP gas stations across London just in time for the morning rush-hour. Small teams of activists used a standard shut-off switch to stop the flow of fuel oil at the targeted stations. The switches were then removed to prevent most BP outlets in the capital from opening.

    Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images

    Demonstrators stand outside a BP petrol station, which they have barricaded with fences, in London on Tuesday.

    And to ensure there was no chance of drivers buying gas, demonstrators in fluorescent vests and helmets locked green metal fences around some sites.

    "What BP needs to do is not just change CEOs it needs to actually come up with a new strategy," Greenpeace U.K.’s chief executive John Sauven said at one of the shuttered stations in Camden, north London.

    Sauven said BP must live up to its pledge to move "beyond petroleum" and stop focusing on squeezing oil from places like the Gulf of Mexico, Canada's tar sands and the fragile Arctic wilderness.

    'Holding us to ransom'
    Anna Jones, who was one of the handful up at dawn to ensure gas stations were shuttered, took a harder line.

    "Big companies like BP are holding us to ransom, chasing profits at the expense of us," the 29-year-old part-time dance teacher said. "The generation before us is largely responsible and the next generation coming up will have to deal with the consequences."

    A BP spokesman described the group's protest as "an irresponsible and childish act which is interfering with safety systems." The firm claimed that only a handful of stations had been prevented from opening.

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    Londoners had mixed views on Greenpeace's actions.

    Daniel Watson, a 41-year-old teacher and tuba player, said BP should recognize the problems of global warming and dependence on petroleum products.

    "We are still living in the illusion that we can live on fossil fuels indefinitely," he added. "There is this kind of approach that it is somebody else’s problem."

    Golden handshake
    Big firms also need to stop handing out big packages to disgraced executives, he said. Hayward's golden handshake included a $1.6 million payoff and pension pot valued at about $17 million.

    "We need controls so that doing a bad job doesn’t get rewarded," Watson said.

    Steve, who has driven a London cab for 37 years and only gave his first name, said he wanted to do something to "save the whales" but branded the protests targeting gas station as "stunts."

    However, Hayward's payout and the behavior of many other executives left the cabbie annoyed.

    "Some of cleverest guys can be the stupidest when it comes to the real world – I see that in my job all the time."

    But not everyone thought Greenpeace was on the right track.

    "Is everybody going to skip driving cars, heating our houses, flying? Get a grip,” said Kathy Wallace, a Canadian who was on her way home to Scotland. “The environment is going to hell anyway, we've already ruined it. All we can do is control the situation."

  • Oil spill illnesses, injuries double in past month

    Oil spill workers toiling along the Gulf Coast have suffered 1,753 illnesses and injuries, according to most recent figures from BP. That’s more than double the tally of a month ago.

    Records collected from April 22 through July 15 include 718 illnesses ranging from dehydration and heat exhaustion to seasickness, and 1035 injuries, mostly cuts, bruises and strains caused by accidents. On July 11, for instance, a worker slipped and caught his arm on a fish hook, which was embedded so deeply it reached the bone.

    Meanwhile, as of Wednesday, poison control centers had received 863 calls from people in 18 states reporting exposures to oil and dispersants, with symptoms that include headaches, nausea, vomiting and dizziness. People who called from states outside the Gulf Coast region may have been in the area to work or visit or may have family there, said a staffer with the American Association of Poison Control Centers.

    Another 536 people have called seeking information about the health effects of the spill, according to the poison centers.

    The largest number of reports has come from Louisiana, where health officials have logged 290 health complaints, including 216 from workers and 74 from the general population. Most frequent symptoms include headache, dizziness and nausea.

  • How do you broadcast TV from a submarine?

    After nearly 100 days of reporting on the Gulf oil spill, how do you find new angles on what seems like an already well-covered story?

    NBC News Chief Environmental Correspondent Anne Thompson explains how she and her crew stay on top of the ongoing environmental disaster by exploring new reporting avenues every day.

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    One way is to send NBC News’ Kerry Sanders, who has been covering the Gulf oil spill for the last three months, as close to the floor of the Gulf of Mexico’s as he can get in a submarine.

    One vexing question Kerry has had in his reporting is: Can you see the oil down below the surface?

    In an effort to answer that question, Kerry and his team of cameramen and engineers have gone to great technical lengths. With the help of a group of scientists, he’s going to try to go about 1,000- 1,800 feet below the surface to look at deepwater coral and try to see if the oil is in the loop current.

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    From broadcasting live TV from a ship in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico to trying to broadcast live from a submarine – Kerry explains the "amazing technical challenges" and the team effort it takes to bring the story home.

  • Tim Sloan / AFP - Getty Images

    Kenneth Feinberg, administrator of the BP Oil Spill Victim Compensation Fund, testifies Wednesday before the House Judiciary Committee.

    Feinberg: Tough 'judgment calls' await on spill claims

    Kenneth Feinberg, the man charged with administering damage claims arising from the BP oil spill in the Gulf, told a House committee on Wednesday that the most difficult task facing him will be making “judgment calls” on claims filed by merchants and workers who haven’t been directly hurt by the environmental disaster.

    “It’s easy if you are a beachfront restaurant with oil or a fisherman with oil (who) can’t harvest,” he said. “… It’s the tough case -- ‘I own a motel 20 miles from the beach; I’ve lost 30 percent of my guests.’ Is that a legitimate claim?”

    Feinberg, 64, also cited real estate agents and T-shirt manufacturers as examples of businesses that have suffered secondary harm from the spill.

    “At some point, it’s a judgment call,” he told members of the House Judiciary Committee of the “tough decisions” that lay ahead. “This side of the line, eligible; this side of the line, ineligible.”

    Feinberg, who said he expects to complete the transition from BP’s claims process to his independent operation by next month, explained that Gulf residents and companies would be able to receive an emergency payment equal to six months of wages or income without waiving the right to sue. But those who accept a second, final payment would agree not to litigate.

    He also said that there would be a three-year limit for filing claims.

    Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., questioned whether Feinberg also would compensate Gulf residents and companies for losses attributable to what he called an “arbitrary moratorium” on deepwater oil drilling.

    “Not on my watch,” Feinberg responded, while acknowledging that determining whether economic impact could be traced directly to the spill – and not the moratorium – would not always be crystal clear.

    Feinberg, who also has overseen federal effort to compensate victims of the Sept. 11 terror attack and to set fair compensation for executives of companies that received federal bailout funds, also testified that he is hopeful that the $20 billion that BP has set aside to pay damage claims arising from the Deepwater Horizon accident will prove sufficient to pay “valid and legitimate claims.” But he also noted that the oil company has pledged to pay more if the fund is exhausted.

    He also took issue with a recommendation by Rep. Stephen Cohen, D-Tenn., that BP be placed into receivership, a form of bankruptcy in which a court-appointed trustee would oversee a reorganization of the company. That, he said, would hinder prompt payment of claims filed by Gulf residents and businesses.

    “I think it would be a monumental tragedy if BP was forced into bankruptcy,” he said.

    -- Additional reporting by Rich Gardella and Amna Nawaz, producers, NBC News Washington bureau.

  • By the numbers: Oil outrage online

    Catherine Chomiak, NBC News

    -- From the Deepwater Horizon Unified Command Ongoing Response statistics (last updated July 18, 2010)

    • More than 6,490 vessels are currently responding on site
    • More than 3.4 million feet of containment boom and 7.2 million feet of sorbent boom have been deployed to contain the spill—and approximately 852,000 feet of containment boom and 3 million feet of sorbent boom are available.
    • More than 34.2 million gallons of an oil-water mix have been recovered.
    • Approximately 1.82 million gallons of total dispersant have been applied—1.07 million on the surface and 771,000 sub-sea. Approximately 574,000 gallons are available.
    • Approximately 615 miles of Gulf Coast shoreline is currently oiled—approximately 352 miles in Louisiana, 112 miles in Mississippi, 69 miles in Alabama, and 82 miles in Florida.
    • Approximately 83,927 square miles of Gulf of Mexico federal waters remain closed to fishing in order to balance economic and public health concerns.

    Despite the abundance of information provided by the Deepwater Horizon Response team, as the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico surpasses three months without a permanent solution, public anger against BP continues to overflow online. Web sites such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Flickr have become active platforms for people to express their frustration with the oil giant and the current environmental crisis.

    The "flow rate" of rising anger can be measured online almost as precisely as the gushing oil that incited it on: "Boycott BP." The site, one of more than 500 Facebook pages related to the oil disaster, is dedicated to boycotting "BP stations until the spill is cleaned up," and has 827,164 fans and counting. There are at least 164,000 YouTube videos capturing various protests; more than 36,606 Flickr photos related to the spill; and approximately 78 new tweets per minute continue to keep the oil spill ranking among Twitter's top trending topics.

    A search for "BP" on YouTube typically yields clips like one posted by someone going by the name "annebonnylives" of a protest outside a local BP station. "The Raging Grannies," a group of elderly activists, have been staging their singing protests against Halliburton and BP in southern Florida.

    Their song "BP's Friggin' Drillin' Rigs," which is sung to the tune of the "Battle Hymn of the Republic," recommends the two companies "take your friggin' drillin' rigs 'cause we don't want your oil! / Halliburton and BP – you suck!" The video has gone viral, with more than 50,516 views.

    Another Floridian, Stan Morton, is "real mad" at BP— so mad, in fact, that he has posted 49 videos, all critical of BP. In one five-minute video, he rants against the company and spills his yard debris in the parking lot of a BP gas station.

    There are at least 36,606 photos associated with the Gulf of Mexico disaster on Flickr. User Starflyer2012, posted 88 photos from a May 28th protest at a Manhattan BP station, where hundreds of activists showed up looking as if they were covered in oil.

    In addition to posting protest pictures, many people online have doctored BP's green and yellow logo to reflect the leak. Flickr member BWJ, combined BP's logo with Sherwin Williams' to "cover the earth" with black paint. Edited logos, like BWJ's, can even be submitted in a contest sponsored by Greenpeace, who used Flickr to create a "Behind the Logo group." There have been 1,111 entries so far.

    To combat the growing body of negative content online, BP's own social media team has ramped up their online presence and is in the process of migrating their DeepwaterHorizonresponse.com site to RestoreTheGulf.gov.

    They have set up their own accounts and pages on YouTube, Facebook, Flickr, and Twitter, where BP's Twitter handle BP_America has more than 18,338 followers. The company has also purchased search terms on Google and Yahoo, so their sponsored pages are at the top of the results.

    BP's YouTube channel includes a video gallery of clips about the company's oil spill cleanup efforts, the release of clean, oil-free birds and presentations by BP officials about ongoing strategies to contain and clean up the crude.

    As of Monday, July 19, the Making it Right commercial has been viewed 319, 482 times.

  • Come to Pensacola - BP clean-up workers like it!

    In Pensacola Beach, Fla., the county Chamber of Commerce and VisitPensacola.com have produced a light-hearted video paid for by BP.

    Actors portraying BP clean-up workers are shown enjoying all the attractions in town - from skipping down the beach to going for a bike ride to taking in the nightlife - in an attempt to draw visitors back to the region. Over a montage of Pensacola scenes, text reads, "The cleanup goes on. But the fun never stopped. Pensacola."

    Watch the full clip, titled "Clean Up Fun," that Visit Pensacola posted on YouTube.

    See Mark Potter's complete report on NBC News' Nightly News that included a clip from the video.

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