Gulf Oil Disaster One Year Later

A year after the worst oil disaster in America's history, are things getting back to normal?

USCG Photo: A Coast Guard air crew from Air Station New Orleans spots an oil sheen off the coast of Elmer's Island, near Grand Isle, in the Gulf of Mexico, March 20, 2011.

Last week marked the one year anniversary of the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, which, among other things, put the Gulf's fishing and boating industries in a tailspin. But is our country's biggest environmental catastrophe being quickly forgotten? Or, were the efforts good enough and the damage minimized enough to prove it was really not as big a deal as many claimed - "200 million gallons of oil? No problem!"

Captain Bligh
In one part of the region, optimism has replaced doom and gloom, at least for one Alabama resident. Jay Reeves, writing for the Associated Press, shows us a glimmer of hope within the region in his profile of Brent Shaver, a local fishing captain who is usually referred to as Captain Bligh. The full article is on AL.com, but basically it sounds like the area is back to business as usual - fishing is back to normal, the oil is gone, and tourism in the region is back to 80% of what it was pre-disaster.

Do you think the Gulf of Mexico is back to normal? Would you hesitate to vacation, swim, boat there or eat fish from there? Will history repeat itself?