"Oil and Water: 11,700 Gulf Oil Spills Since BP Raise New Fears"

"“It means that there’s nobody really watching. There’s no entity out there day by day making sure these problems are dealt with.” "

"Recent discoveries of illegal, unreported oil discharges and systematic dumping of chemicals from rigs and platforms have raised new fears about environmental damage in the Gulf of Mexico, more than six years after the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

Tracking of federal data by the environmental watchdog group SkyTruth shows more than 11,700 oil spills have been reported in the Gulf of Mexico since the BP oil spill ended in July 2010.

But the rate of spills also has slowed significantly, from 245 a month in 2012 to 80 in October 2016."

David Hammer reports for WWL-TV New Orleans November 28, 2016.