Ramon Antonia Vargas, a reporter at The Times-Picayune, rolled out of bed at 5 a.m. on April 21 to check the local news and came across the press release from the Coast Guard. The press release said the previous night an oil drilling rig, known as the MODU Deepwater Horizon, had exploded and caught fire at 10 p.m. in the Gulf of Mexico, about 45 miles southeast of Venice, La.

“It was about a minute after I had woken up and I had already made my first call to the Coast Guard,” said Vargas.

The population of the Gulf Coast grew twice as fast as the nation’s population between 1960 and 2008, according to a recently released US Census report on coastline populations, but the BP oil spill may change that trend.

President Barack Obama took full responsibility for controlling the oil spill crisis in the Gulf of Mexico at a White House news conference Thursday, but said the government would continue to rely on BP for cleanup efforts because of their superior technology and expertise.

The impact of the oil spill on the wildlife has become a major concern as oil continues to gush from a ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico, damaging their homes. And as reports of oiled birds, turtles and other animals begin to come into the Deepwater Horizon Response Joint Information Center, rescue centers throughout the Gulf are preparing for an influx of activity.

The “top killing” began Wednesday afternoon — a procedure BP hopes will finally plug the open well that has leaked at least 7 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico for more than a month. Mud and cement are being pumped into the well to stop the flow of oil and possibly seal the leak.

The chief mechanic of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig testified Wednesday that a BP official and a Deepwater rig manager were arguing on board the rig, just hours before the April 20 explosion.

The oil spill has affected an estimated 13,000 commercial licensed fishermen in Louisiana, not including deckhands and crew, according to the Louisiana State Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. An estimated one-third of those fishermen are immigrants from Southeast Asia. Many speak little or no English, and face the third major upheaval of their lives.

Nearly 40 oyster fishermen met Tuesday with state officials, lawyers and a representative from an oyster crop insurance company at the University of New Orleans to discuss how the Gulf of Mexico oil spill has impacted their industry.

After contentious debate between the Environmental Protection Agency and BP regarding its use of a particular dispersant in the Gulf of Mexico, BP has agreed to lessen the amount it is using to help clean up the massive oil spill. BP will cut back its use of the dispersant Corexit, which it has been spraying in the Gulf, by 50 to 75 percent.

A concerned community of St. Bernard Parish residents, fishermen and local officials attended a town hall meeting between BP representatives on Monday night at the Frederick J. Sigur Civic Center.