(Miami, FL) -- A leading environmental advocacy group is claiming it may be years before some Gulf of Mexico beaches recover completely from the BP oil spill. David Beckman of the Natural Resources Defense Council calls the spill and damage done to the Gulf of Mexico coastline an "unprecedented tragedy and environmental disaster." The group released its annual "Testing the Waters" report on Wednesday, which included a special section dealing with the impact of the Gulf oil gusher that began on April 20th. The report says spilled crude contains a potentially deadly mixture of heavy metals ranging from mercury to arsenic, along with assorted hydrocarbons that can have health effects including long-term reproductive or neurological damage, even cancer.
The NRDC report says even before the disaster, Louisiana had the dirtiest beaches in the United States, thanks in large part to high levels of human and animal waste. Since the spill, there have been nearly ten times as many beach closures as were posted all of last year along the Gulf coast. Beckman summed up the accuracy of any future predictions, saying it's difficult to tell whether this is "the tip of the iceberg."
