[VRM]

The folks at Woods Hole had recently done some studies on a spill that happened in Buzzards Bay, MA back in 1969. They pulled samples 6-8 inches down and found that it still smells like the diesel fuel that was spilled 40 years ago, and they have noticed different behaviours from things like fiddler crabs when they burrow to the layer where the fuel is.
So even a 'clean-up' done by BP, Transocean, or the US Govt probably does not mean that everything will be back to normal. And that will most likely still mean lots of lawsuits from lots of aggrieved parties, real, imagined, and everything in between.

Steve