The Road Ahead

The trustees for publicly owned natural resources – in this case, the five states, two federal agencies, and the Department of Defense—will continue to study the spill and its effects in a formal process known as the Natural Resources Damage Assessment. The research assembled during this process becomes the foundation for the Trustees’ legal case against the responsible party. A typical damage assessment can take years.

The goal of a natural resource damage assessment is, according to WHAT, "to make the environment and public whole for injuries to natural resources and services resulting from [an oil spill]."

The Gulf marine and coastal ecosystems were already stressed environments before the spill; policies and approaches developed in reaction to the spill have been taking this complexity into account.