Deepwater Horizon aftermath: how much is a dolphin worth?

[xchrom]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/apr/19/deepwater-horizon-aftermath-dolphin-worth?intcmp=122


A dead dolphin marked with spray paint on Queen Bess Island at the mouth of Barataria Bay in 2010. Photograph: Gerald Herbert/AP

The dolphins are preserved in giant freezers in marine labs across America. Tagged, catalogued, carefully guarded – and suspended in liquid nitrogen for the moment when they will determine BP's final bill for the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster, which started two years ago this Friday.

The dolphins, among more than 700 that have washed up on Gulf shores since the last two years, are a crucial component of the investigation now underway to decide the cost to BP of restoring the wildlife and environment damaged by the biggest offshore spill in US history.

The carcasses were collected – on at least one occasion by armed federal officials, and generally with witnesses from BP – from marine science facilities on the Gulf coast and transported to labs across the country. Scientists are evaluating their tissue for evidence of exposure to hydrocarbons from the runaway well, as part of the lengthy process of accounting for environmental damage to the Gulf.

At its most basic, the process now consuming teams of BP and government scientists and lawyers revolves around this: How much is a dolphin worth, and how exactly did it die?

[Scuba]

1. One dolphin is worth more than one Tony Hayward.

[Nihil]

2. True - or one Barack Obama or one "any favoured or hated individual you choose to name".

The preservation of the dolphin is far more important than *any* individual human that you care to name.

The bigotry and short-sightedness on this problem is all too deep-seated.

[Scuba]

3. You lost me.