Sixteen years after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, fragile deep-sea ecosystems show minimal recovery due to slow organism growth rates and a lack of ocean currents to break up the crude. The disaster cleanup relied heavily on chemical dispersants that sank millions of gallons of oil to the sea floor, effectively hiding the environmental damage from public view. Although these dispersants successfully reduced toxic airborne benzene levels to protect cleanup workers, the sunken oil continues to linger and devastate the deep-sea habitat.