One year later: Lessons unlearned

One year ago today, explosions rocked an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico about 50 miles off the coast of Louisiana, killing 11 men and triggering one of the nation's worst environmental disasters.

As the Deepwater Horizon platform listed and sank, engulfed in flames, nobody realized what was about to happen to the Gulf, to its surrounding communities, to the people who depended on the water for their livelihood.

Days later, officials from BP, which was running the drilling operation, reported that about 1,000 barrels of oil were leaking daily from the ocean floor a mile below the surface.

It marked the first of several estimates - of oil spilling, of damage, of livelihoods destroyed - that would be revised upward.

In the weeks and months that followed, as the Macondo well defied every human effort to contain its eruption, public fear and anger and frustration grew.

The White House was flatfooted, deferring to a company that was clearly out of its depth on a spill that was unprecedented. The rate of the leak was estimated at 5,000 barrels per day. Then it jumped to 12,000 to 19,000 barrels per day. It was 62,000 at its peak.

Almost from the beginning, dead fish and birds came ashore. Oil coated the Gulf floor. It washed into marshes and oyster beds. Tourists, the lifeblood of resort cities and towns along the Gulf Coast, stayed away. Watermen hauled in contaminated catches and were barred from an ever-expanding part of the Gulf.

An estimated 5 million barrels - more than 200 million gallons - of oil leaked into the Gulf by the time the Macondo well was finally sealed in August, four months after the spill began. More than 660 miles of coastline were contaminated.

Even today, the full picture of the devastation remains unclear.

BP - which has spent billions to compensate people for their losses - says things are returning to normal in the Gulf. The federal government, in September, said most of the oil had broken down or been cleaned up.

Some scientists disagree. They've found thick, oily sediment coating marine life on the Gulf floor. Petroleum-contaminated dead zones have been found where life once teemed.

The Gulf's water and air were polluted for months. The effects won't be known for years.

Cleanup crews sprayed more than a million gallons of a chemical dispersant into the Gulf in a bid to break down the oil, as the Environmental Protection Agency warned it could cause unintended effects.

Even the cause of the explosion and subsequent leak remains uncertain.

Court and congressional testimony has revealed some crew members acknowledged failing to follow emergency protocol in the moments before the Deepwater Horizon exploded, and there remain questions about whether the blowout preventer actually malfunctioned.

Washington has tightened regulations designed to prevent a repeat of the Gulf disaster. Thankfully, nobody has yet had to test whether that is enough to prevent a repeat.

They will.

Crews pursuing drilling off America's coasts undoubtedly will encounter another "nightmare well," as one BP engineer described the Macondo well a week before it exploded.

The White House has chosen to delay plans to open the Outer Continental Shelf - including off Virginia - to oil and gas drilling.

The administration says it wants to know, more completely, what happened in the Gulf last year.

Despite that, seven state lawmakers sent a letter this week to Virginia's congressional delegation. The delegates and senators support proposals to initiate exploration and development of offshore oil and natural gas as soon as next year. They'll get receptive ears.

Both U.S. Reps. Scott Rigell and Rob Wittman - who represent Virginia's coast - have joined a push by a Washington state congressman to open Virginia's ocean to oil companies.

This, despite the fact that so much remains unclear about what happened a year ago aboard - and below - the Deepwater Horizon. About the long-term effects of the disaster. And about what could've been done to prevent it.