Last week, many people were pained to see -- for the first time --photographs by government experts showing dead, oiled sea turtles taken in the weeks immediately after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill. It was not surprising that federal officials kept these photos, which also showed sperm whales swimming through an oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico, under wraps for so long. The ongoing tragedy of oil-covered endangered turtles and stranded or dying dolphins -- not to mention the ruinous impact on seafood, from eyeless shrimp to lesion-covered snappers -- is a grim reminder that reality on the Gulf Coast is far different from the upbeat picture that BP, with the endorsement of Washington, is selling to the American people. But beyond the immediate damage from the more than 200 million gallons that spewed into the Gulf, experts have long warned of the insidious impact of both crude oil and the toxic chemical that was used to hide the problem -- Corexit -- persisting in the environment. The worst fears were that the damage could spread far beyond the bayous of the Gulf Coast once these pollutants entered the food chain. And so it may sound bizarre -- biologists looking ...
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