A BP executive dismissed the environmental impacts of the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill and the company's role in the disaster in an opinion article for Politico Magazine, while the company is attempting to overturn a court decision finding it “grossly negligent.” But the effects of one of the worst environmental disasters in U.S. history are still being felt in the region today.

Four years after BP's Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in the Gulf, BP's senior vice president of communications and external affairs Geoff Morrell attempted to argue that previous “dire predictions” about the environmental effects of the spill had been overblown. In an October 21 Politico Magazine article, Morell wrote that a yet-to-be-completed environmental assessment -- funded by BP -- will show that “the Gulf environment is rebounding and that most of the environmental impact was of short duration and in a limited geographic area.”

But Morrell's Politico Magazine article was misleading. Wildlife in the region is still experiencing the consequences of the spill, according to a recent report from the National Wildlife Federation (NWF). The NWF studied 14 species that have suffered effects from the spill, including the ongoing illness of bottlenose dolphins and a “dramatic increase” in sea turtle deaths. The report concluded that more needs to be done to speed up the region's recovery. CBS reported of its findings: “No matter how much money is exchanged and what efforts are done, there remains no guarantee that the Gulf Coast regions will fully recover to pre-spill conditions.”

Morrell also made the mistaken claim that bacteria in the Gulf's waters “adapted over time to feast on oil,” which he claimed showed the Gulf's “inherent resilience” in recovering from the spill. But the bacteria's appetite for oil “die[d] down five months” after the oil rig explosion, according to a team of researchers at Rochester University.

BP is currently attempting to overturn the recent court verdict that the company was "grossly negligent" in advance of and in response to the spill. The verdict, which assigns BP the majority of the blame, sets the financial penalties the company may have to pay at as much as $18 billion.

The night before the court decision was first announced, Morrell blamed “opportunistic” environmentalists for over-exaggerating the spill's environmental impacts and journalists for "under-report[ing]" the company's cleanup efforts. He echoed this argument in the October Politico Magazine article, writing that “we should not be accountable for damages caused by the acts of others, or those conjured up by opportunistic advocacy groups.”

Politico has touted its magazine, which launched last November, as containing “consequential stories that are not always the stuff of daily headlines” and aiming “to fill a dangerous vacuum in the rapidly transitioning world of journalism, with too few really big takes on big subjects holding leaders in Washington and beyond accountable.”