Crude oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill washes ashore in Orange Beach, Alabama, Saturday, June 12, 2010. Large amounts of the oil battered the Alabama coast, leaving deposits of the slick mess some 4-6 inches thick on the beach in some parts. #

A young heron sits dying amidst oil splattering underneath mangrove on an island impacted by oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in Barataria Bay, just inside the the coast of Louisiana, Sunday, May 23, 2010. #

EDF (Environmental Defense Fund) coastal scientist Angelina Freeman takes a sample of oil while surveying the conditions of Bartaria Bay near Venice, Louisiana June 6, 2010. #

Deep sea corals on the bottom of the northern Gulf of Mexico, not far from where BP's underwater oil well blew out on April 20, seen in September of 2010. Scientists are studying whether the crude damaged the corals or will lead to long-term impacts. #

In this November 11, 2010 photo, Courtney Kemp, 27, widow of Roy Wyatt Kemp, 27,who died in the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion, cries as she talks about her life with him, in Jonesville, Louisiana. #

Rain falls on oil sheen on the surface of the Gulf of Mexico near the site of the Deepwater Horizon oil well leak off the coast of Louisiana Thursday, July 15, 2010. #

A Northern Gannet seabird, affected by the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, is cleaned by rehabilitators at a rescue center facility set up by the International Bird Rescue Research Center #

The damaged blowout preventer from the Deepwater Horizon oil rig is extracted by the Q4000 vessel from the Gulf of Mexico in this photograph taken on September 4, 2010 and released on September 5. The preventer, which was removed and replaced on the well head by a newly tested preventer, will be taken for evidence in the ongoing investigation of the explosion at the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform. #

Hundreds of cranes and vessels are at a standstill as you approach the calm waters of Port Fourchon Friday December 3, 2010, in Golden Meadow, Louisiana. The typically bustling port has slowed since the moratorium of drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. #

Tulane University population ecologist Jessica Henkel sets up a net to catch migrating birds for blood, fecal and feather samples on Fourchon Beach in Port Fourchon, Louisiana on April 1, 2011, as part of a research project that is looking for long-term, not immediately lethal effects from the BP PLC oil spill on birds that stop along the Gulf Coast during their migration. "It's much easier to see a dead pelican on the beach" than it is to see more chronic population-wide effects, Henkel said. #

Workers clean oil left over from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico March 10, 2011 at Perdido Key State Park in Pensacola, Florida. With Spring Break approaching, crews continued to work to remove leftover oil from beaches along the Gulf Coast. #

A great blue heron stands on oil containment booms that are being used to protect the beach area from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico on June 7, 2010 in Pensacola, Florida. #

Darlene Kimball, owner of a seafood distribution company, greets a visitor to her office in Pass Christian, Mississippi on March 29, 2011. Kimball, who has a large, unpaid claim for damage as a result of the Deepwater Horizon explosion, is dismayed by the way local governments spent BP funds. #

A dolphin that was named Louie after he arrived on Sunday at the Dolphin Research Center swims in a pen as Cara Field, Associate Veterinarian Audubon Nature Research Institute, New Orleans, Louisiana, interacts with him on February 8, 2011 in Marathon, Florida. The dolphin was found on September 2, 2010 washed up on Port Fourchon beach in Louisiana with oil on its skin from the Gulf oil spill and will now be cared for and raised at the marine mammal education and research facility in the Florida Keys. Louie arrived at the Dolphin Research Center after being brought back to health at the New Orleans' Audubon Nature Institute. #

A dead endangered sea turtle is seen after it washed ashore and was flipped over by an activist April 16, 2011 in Pass Christian, Mississippi. Local turtle activist Shirley Tillman says she has discovered 20 dead sea turtles in Mississippi in the month of April alone and suspects they are dying due to the effects of the BP oil spill. Endangered sea turtles and dolphins are still dying in high numbers in Mississippi, which continues to be impacted by tar balls and weathered oil. The National Wildlife Federation reports that sea turtle strandings on the Gulf Coast were seven times the normal level in March. #

The sun sets over wetlands in Barataria Bay April 13, 2011 in Barataria Bay, Louisiana. Barataria Bay and its fragile wetlands was one of the hardest hit areas in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion and oil spill. #

Hans Holbrook, of LaPlace, Louisiana stands in the marsh while holding up a speaker playing bird songs as he looks for birds during the National Audubon Society's annual Christmas bird count on the Gulf Coast in Grand Isle, Louisiana, Saturday, December 22, 2010. 60,000 bird watchers fanned out across the Western Hemisphere during the winter holidays to count birds in their regions and submit checklists for the Audubon Society's 110-year-old tally of birds at Christmas. #

Guests enjoy fresh seafood from the Gulf of Mexico during "Supper on the Sand: A Celebration of the Gulf." at the Gulf State Park Pavilion in Gulf Shores Alabama, Sunday, April 17, 2011. Celebrity Chef Guy Fieri hosted the 500-seat dinner on the beach celebrating the area's resiliency as the one year anniversary of the BP oil spill approaches. #

Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Secretary Robert Barham holds up a clump of oil and dead marsh grass from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, as he tours oil impacted areas of Bay Jimmy with Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser, in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, Friday, January 7, 2011. Oil from the Deepwater Horizon disaster remains in marshes off the coast of Louisiana, where officials renewed complaints Friday about the cleanup effort by BP and the federal government. #

Institute for Marine Mammal Studies veterinary technician Wendy Hatchett lifts a dead bottlenose dolphin that was found on Ono Island, Alabama,and brought for examination to Gulfport, Mississippi, Tuesday, February 22, 2011. Researchers say that more than a dozen young dolphins, either aborted before they reached maturity or dead soon after birth, have been collected along the Gulf Coast in the past two weeks -- about 10 times the normal number for the first two months of the year. Samples have been sent for testing to see whether the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was a factor in their deaths. #

Researchers from the Audubon Institute, The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Institute, and the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries release sea turtles that had previously been impacted by oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, back into the Gulf of Mexico, 45 miles off the coast of Louisiana, Thursday, October 21, 2010. #

Footprints are seen on the beach March 10, 2011 in Pensacola Beach, Florida. With spring break approaching, crews continued to worked to remove leftover oil from last spring's Deepwater Horizon oil spill from beaches along the Gulf Coast. #

Price Billiot stands on his fishing dock in the American Indian fishing village of Pointe-Aux-Chenes, Louisiana on January 28, 2011, where Billiot says he's surviving for now, thanks in part to $65,000 in emergency oil spill payments he received from BP PLC in June for his business losses. Even before oil began spewing into the Gulf of Mexico last spring, Louisiana's American Indian fishing villages were on the brink of collapse because of social change and the dramatic loss of coastal wetlands. Now, Indians who have known nothing but fishing all their lives find their futures tied to Kenneth Feinberg, the man handing out checks for billions of dollars of damage claims resulting from the spill. #

The sun reflects off of the blue water at the site of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion and oil spill almost one year later, in the Gulf of Mexico, 50 miles off the coast of Louisiana on Sunday, April 10, 2011. The ugly stains of last summer are mostly fading memories in what seems like a testimony to the resiliency of nature. But that's just the picture from the shimmering surface, where looks can be deceiving. #