(CNN) — An oil sheen about four miles long has appeared in the Gulf of Mexico near the site of the worst oil spill in U.S. history, a Coast Guard spokesman said Thursday.

It was not immediately clear where the oil is coming from, said Petty Officer 3rd Class Ryan Tippets. Read More

BAY ST. LOUIS, MS (WLOX) -

A dead zone of warm water and low oxygen has caused thousands of dead fish to wash up in the bayous surrounding the Garden Isles community in Bay St Louis.

The Department of Marine Resources has confirmed most of the fish are menhaden, also known as pogey fish. Dr. Bill Walker told WLOX News this time of year, you’ll find menhaden closer to shore. They’re often in bays and bayous, and by harbors.

JAMAICA BEACH, Texas – Thousands of dead fish are washing ashore along the Texas coast from the Colorado River to Galveston Island and Parks and Wildlife biologists suspect low oxygen levels off shore may be to blame.

What tides are bringing in on Jamaica Beach is making people pause.

“I hope it’s nothing major,” said Mark Gannon, who took his family to the beach Sunday.　 “I hope the water is safe.”

Thousands of dead shad litter the sand.

“Any idea what it is?” asked Gannon’s wife Alexia. Read More

“We need emergency help,” Tran said.

Read More

MIAMI — The deaths of over 150 dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico so far this year is due in part to the devastating 2010 BP oil spill and the chemical dispersants used to contain it, a report said Thursday.

A total of 153 dolphins have been found in the Gulf so far in 2011, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Sixty-five of the mammals were babies.

In a study on the effects of the spill, marine expert Graham Worthy of the University of Central Florida, along with 26 other experts, said the dolphins were found in a part of the Gulf that saw nearly five million barrels of crude leak in the worst oil spill in US history.

“I suspect what we might be seeing are several things coming together to form a perfect storm,” Worthy said.

However, unusual cold waters that were partially to blame are also conditions that the dolphins could normally survive — so the deaths “may also be seeing an indirect effect stemming from the BP oil spill,” he said.

“If oil and the dispersants have disrupted the food chain, this may have prevented the mother dolphins from getting adequate nutrition and building up the insulating blubber they needed to withstand the cold.”

BP last month pledged $1 billion to jump-start projects aimed at restoring the US Gulf Coast by rebuilding damaged coastal marshes, replenishing soiled beaches, and conserving ocean habitat to help injured wildlife recover.

The funds are also being put towards restoring barrier islands and wetlands that provide natural protection from storms.

By the time the well was capped 87 days later, 4.9 million barrels (206 million gallons) of oil had gushed out of the runaway well 5,000 feet (1,500 meters) below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico.

Over a million gallons of dispersants were also deployed to break up the oil on the surface and deep underwater, and the environmentalists cautioned that their use was also a health hazard to animals and plant life in the Gulf, in some cases forcing large amounts of the oil to simply sink and clump together.

Hundreds of miles of fragile coastal wetlands and beaches were contaminated, a third of the Gulf’s rich US waters were closed to fishing, and the economic costs have reached into the tens of billions of dollars since the leak began in April last year after an explosion aboard a deep-sea drilling rig.

Copyright © 2011 AFP. All rights reserved.

BP Plc (BP/) was sued by Mitsui & Co.’s Moex Offshore LLC unit and Anadarko Petroleum Corp. (APC), both minority partners in the blown-out Macondo well, over economic losses from the project’s failure and the Gulf of Mexico oil spill that followed.

Moex and Anadarko, claiming BP broke its partnership agreement, asked a federal judge in New Orleans to declare they aren’t responsible for damages and cleanup costs resulting from the worst off-shore oil spill in U.S. history. Both companies said London-based BP was responsible for the blow-out and the spill.

“BP’s conduct was the proximate cause of foreseeable damage suffered by Moex Offshore, including claims made against it for liability for death, personal injury, cleanup costs, economic loss, loss of investment, lost profits and any damages or fines assessed in pending or future proceedings involving the spill,” Moex said in a court filing yesterday.

Moex and Anadarko, saying they had no fault in the blow-out and spill, also accused Transocean Ltd. (RIG), the owner of the rig that drilled the Macondo well, of gross negligence. Switzerland- based Transocean was responsible along with BP for the damages, according to the unit of Tokyo-based Mitsui.

BP has said it expects its minority partners in the damaged well to pay their share of billions of dollars in cleanup costs, oil-spill damages and pollution fines. Moex, which had a 10 percent stake in the well, and The Woodlands, Texas-based Anadarko, with a 25 percent stake, deny having any decision- making role or prior knowledge of the way BP operated the drilling project.

‘No Evidence’

“No evidence exists to support a claim of gross negligence against Transocean,” Brian Kennedy, a spokesman for the drilling company, said in an e-mail.

“Moex’s filing contains a number of specific allegations against BP that are not supported by fact or by law,” Daren Beaudo, a BP spokesman, said in an e-mail before Anadarko made its filing. “BP will respond to the complaint in a timely manner.”

Moex said in its filing yesterday that it “suffered economic losses as a result of BP’s negligence, including the loss to the reservoir, the loss of its investments, lost profits and defense costs, including attorneys’ fees.”

The case is part of In Re: Oil Spill by the Oil Rig Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20, 2010, MDL-2179, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Louisiana (New Orleans).

Source: Bloomberg