Carl Safina headed down to the Gulf Coast just days after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded on April 20, 2010. A veteran of the Exxon Valdez spill — and the head of the Blue Ocean Institute, a nonprofit that focuses on marine health — Safina wanted to see the Gulf oil spill up close, to document something he was sure would be an environmental catastrophe. Researching what would become the book A Sea in Flames — which goes on sale April 19 — Safina spent time with Gulf fishermen and ecologists, toured oiled beaches and spoke to people involved in the cleanup. As long as the oil kept spilling, just about everyone had the same opinion: the spill would be truly catastrophic for the Gulf and its coast. “We didn’t know how it would stop or when it would stop,” says Safina. “Gulf fishermen who’d invested their lives in the industry were convinced they’d never fish again.”
Yet nearly a year after the spill began, it seems clear that the worst-case scenario never came true. It’s not that the oil spill had no lasting effects — far from it — but the ecological doomsday many predicted clearly hasn’t taken place. There is recovery where once there was only fear. “A lot of questions remain, but where we are now is ahead of where people thought we’d be,” Safina says. “Most people expected it would be much worse.”
