BP Gulf Oil Spill Damage Valued at $17.2 Billion in New Study

BP Plc’s 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill caused damage to beaches, animals, fish, and coral that the public values at $17.2 billion, according to a financial accounting released on the seventh anniversary of the disaster.

The tally, published Thursday in the journal Science, is based on a survey of thousands of Americans that asked what they’d be willing to pay to prevent the kind of impacts unleashed by the spill, which began with an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig on April 20, 2010.

The worst oil spill in U.S. history killed 11 rig workers, spewed 134 million ...