USF gets more BP money to study oil spill

Posted Aug 30, 2011 by Lindsay Peterson

Updated Aug 30, 2011 at 03:33 PM

Only eight centers were picked of the nearly 80 that applied for the BP money, and USF’s College of Marine Science was one of them.

It’s leading an international consortium getting $11 million, part of $112.5 million from the BP’s Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative.

Major awards also went to two other Florida groups, including FSU, which leads a consortium getting $20 million, and the private University of Miami.

The USF researchers will be looking at two things, how the oil and gas was dispersed through the Gulf after the 2010 oil blowout and how they affected the marine life in the Gulf and on the coastlines.

USF “remains committed to a full scientific explanation of the impact of the oil and dispersants,” said USF Provost Ralph Wilcox in a release by Vickie Chachere of USF News.

USF led the way in tracking the movement of the oil through the Gulf. Its researchers were among the first to identify the deep-sea oil plumes drifting toward ecologically sensitive areas off the coast.

The R/V Weatherbird II took USF researchers into the Gulf

Lately, they’ve been working with fisheries managers on the reports of fish turning up with lesions, discoloration and fin rot since the spill.

They have thousands of these disfigured fish.

The blowout may seem like history now, but it looks like it’s still doing damage out there.

State University System Chancellor Frank Brogan cheered the awards. “Our public universities are on the frontlines of the challenging work to restore and monitor the health of the Gulf as well as Florida’s critical marine economy and ecosystem.”