BP Oil Spill

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Oil spills happen every year, many of the incidences are small; however expansive spills occur every few years that can debilitate an eco-system. (Center for Environmental Diversity, 2014) Of these spills, the largest accidental off-shore oil spill in U.S. history is the British Petroleum (BP) Deepwater Horizon oil spill that devastated the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. It began on the morning of April 20th when a bubble of high pressure methane gas from the well expanded up through the drilling riser, and rose into the drilling rig, where it ignited and exploded. The explosion killed two engineers and nine of the rig crew out of the 126 crew members onboard (Naoki Schwartz, Harry R. Weber, 2010). Two days later on the morning of April 22nd, the …show more content…
Although the amount of oil that has entered the Gulf waters, and the rate at which it was flowing from the Macaondo Well is not exactly known, images show that 68,000 square miles of ocean was impacted; and scientists estimate that around 4.9 million barrels of oil was introduced into the environment (Plus or minus a 10% uncertainty) (USCG, 2011), this includes oil that had been recovered or burned during the clean-up operation. BP has estimated a flow rate of 1,000-5,000 barrels per day; however the Flow Rate Technical Group (FRTG) estimated the flow rate was 62,000 barrels per day, much more than BP originally reported. BP argued FRTG’s figures, saying that 810,000 barrels oil that had been burned or collected before reaching Gulf waters had not been considered in the study. (Michael Kunzelman, …show more content…
Oil had also washed up on Mississippi’s, Florida’s, and Alabama’s coastlines, (Joshua Schneyer, 2010) but this was just the beginning. In September, Louisiana was hit again when oil was found along 16 miles of coastline and marshes. By the summer of 2011 an estimated 491 miles of Louisiana’s, Florida’s, Mississippi’s, and Alabama’s coastlines were contaminated with oil and a total of 1,074 miles had been oiled since the spill began. By July 2010 the spill had already devastated the Gulf. The catastrophic consequences of the massive leak heavily affected the marine life, sending the eco-system into ruins. The dense, suffocating coat of oil left by the spill, which coated animals from birds and sea turtles, to deep-sea corals, also introduced toxins and chemicals into the water. In Louisiana a team of researchers from Oregon State University found that the spill rose the levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) 40 times what they were before the spill occurred. (Joshua Schneyer, 2010) Though the PAHs levels were highest in Louisiana, the areas around Mississippi, Florida, and Alabama saw an increase of up to 2 to 3 times higher. PAHs contain carcinogens and chemicals, several studies have been conducted over the years to showcase the damage inflicted by the oil and its toxins. A study done on Bottlenose dolphins by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) was
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