In April 2010, an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico killed 11 workers and led to what’s been called the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history.
The federal government estimates the BP oil spill dumped more than 4 million barrels into the Gulf of Mexico over 87 days.
And now, a new paper published in the journal Science, estimates the damage to natural resources valued by the public — think beaches and animals, among other things — at $17.2 billion.
Kerry Smith, emeritus regents professor of economics at ASU, is a co-author on that paper, and he joins me.