Deepwater Horizon Restoration: Funding, Projects and Recovery

Restoration after Deepwater Horizon spans coastal habitats and offshore resources, including marine mammals, fish and sea turtles. The Trustees describe an ecosystem approach in which projects are designed to benefit more than one restoration type.

Who governs restoration money

The 2016 BP settlement included up to $8.8 billion for restoration addressing natural resource injuries from the spill.

The RESTORE Act established the Gulf Coast Restoration Trust Fund in the Treasury Department. It receives 80 percent of qualifying administrative and civil penalties paid after July 6, 2012 under section 311 of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act in connection with the spill.

The Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Council includes six federal agencies or departments and the five Gulf Coast states. Its Comprehensive Plan Component receives 30 percent of penalties plus half the interest earned on trust fund investments, for projects and programs under a Council-approved comprehensive plan. The Spill Impact Component makes another 30 percent of penalties available to Gulf states for eligible activities under Council-approved state expenditure plans. The Treasury Inspector General can audit and investigate activities funded under the Act.

Allocations and annual accountability

In June 2026, the Trustees reported $3.34 billion allocated to restoration projects and 384 approved activities, including plans and projects. Their 325 reports for 2025 comprised 286 reports on approved restoration projects and 39 on plans and other planning activities. These reports recorded each activity's status at December 31, 2025.

On April 22, 2026, the RESTORE Council reported more than $1.32 billion awarded: $494 million under Council-Selected Restoration and $831 million under Spill Impact. At that announcement, its draft priorities list proposed over $403 million in investments in habitats, water quality and coastal resilience. The proposal had been released for public comment in November 2025; a vote was anticipated that summer. The Council also reported its eleventh consecutive unqualified opinion on its financial statements, with no findings or material weaknesses.

Marshes, oyster reefs and birds

In April 2025, the Trustees reported that Florida's Pensacola Bay Living Shoreline project had been completed in 2021. It constructed more than half a mile of breakwaters across approximately 3.5 acres and created over nine acres of vegetated tidal wetland. Monitoring showed reef habitat for oysters, shrimp, crabs, fish and birds; the reef structures also reduced incoming wave energy, helping protect the shoreline.

NOAA's 2025 account reported that Chenier Ronquille's shoreline remained intact despite severe storms, without new tidal passes. That project improved shoreline stability, restored dune features and created a backbarrier marsh platform. Chenier Ronquille received 1.3 million cubic yards of beach and marsh fill designed to prevent island breaching over a 20-year project life. The Upper Barataria Marsh Creation Project restored approximately 1,260 acres of marshland and tidal habitats. Completed in 2023, it used pumped sediment to restore marsh habitats and stabilize the shoreline.

Queen Bess Island, near Grand Isle in Jefferson Parish, is a nesting site for brown pelicans and other colonial waterbirds; erosion and subsidence had reduced its nesting habitat. In September 2026, Louisiana's Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority reported that Queen Bess Island's restoration, completed in 2020, had increased nesting habitat abundance and quality. Funded through the Deepwater Horizon natural resource damage settlement, it included material placement, protective rock improvements, breakwaters, bird ramps and habitat plantings. The award body ASBPA said monitoring demonstrated bird benefits and that habitat and nesting goals had been exceeded.

Fisheries and sea turtle bycatch

The six-year Oceanic Fish Restoration Project left more than 40,000 fish across 60 species in the water, according to NOAA's 2025 account. Participating pelagic longline fishermen voluntarily changed fishing practices through a six-month fishing pause and optional alternative gear with a lower risk of dead discards. Participants received compensation for losses during the pause, and alternative gear was supplied free.

In July 2025, the Open Ocean Trustee Implementation Group reported a completed project testing modified turtle excluder devices in the otter trawl shrimp fishery. The devices are used in shrimp trawl nets to reduce the unintentional capture of sea turtles. Small juvenile turtles with body depths below two inches are not always excluded by the standard four-inch bar spacing, because of their size and limited strength to use the escape flap. Tests of 2.5-inch spacing found reduced juvenile turtle bycatch without a significant decrease in shrimp catch.

What recovery monitoring can establish

In an account published in April 2025 and updated in April 2026, NOAA reported vessel-based visual surveys in 2017–2018 and repeated surveys in 2023–2024 to evaluate marine mammal population trends and distribution. Passive acoustic monitoring at several sites found density declines over the decade following the spill: up to 31 percent for sperm whales, 83 percent for beaked whales and 43 percent for small delphinids. Declines occurred both inside and outside the surface oil footprint and were not conclusively linked to the spill. NOAA reported that the declines exceeded and outlasted post-spill damage assessment predictions, suggesting offshore impacts might have been larger than previously thought. The agency described sustained monitoring as necessary to measure whether restoration was meeting its goals.