Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico

There are a number of government resources on the Gulf of Mexico Deepwater Horizon spill and I thought today I would take the opportunity to highlight just a few:

• Maps It used to be that to see the various maps for the Oil spill and response you needed to go to a number of different pages, but NOAA has released a GeoPlatform that integrates all the various data points together into one map.
• Responding:
  Unified Command for the BP Oil Spill This is the home page for the all the responses to the oil spill. From here you can file a claim, report incidents and oiled wildlife.
  NOAA The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA) page focuses on where the oil is going, weather forecasts, and fishery closures. One of their major contributions is the map listed above.
  EPA The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) focuses on the effects of the spill on the human and aquatic population. They are the group that examines the samples and authorizes the use of various dispersants on the oil.
  US Fish and Wildlife The US Fish and Wildlife Service is the group that currently is coordinating the wildlife and habitat recovery efforts. It is here that you can find the depressing numbers of how many wildlife of various types have been found.

If you still want to learn more, there are a couple guides that can help out. The library has guides to the environment and energy and alternative fuels.