Oil Spill Touches U.S. Coast
Today’s reports suggest the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and the resulting oil slick, has reached the Louisiana coast and will remain unstoppable for weeks.
- Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill, picture courtesy of NASA
Points of the massive oil slick touched the coast of the U.S. on Thursday night.
With efforts to contain the leak continuing to fail and the local environments facing serious damage, the U.S. Government has called the oil spill an “incident of national significance” and can therefore provide extended resources to deal with the situation.
According to a New York Times article, the Air Force has sent at least 130 planes to Alabama in order to provide assistance when needed. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal even requested the aid of 6,000 National Guard soldiers; understandably, I might add, as the Louisiana coast is in risk of receiving the most damage. The Navy has also sent personnel to help the 1,000-plus people already working on the situation.
Other states expecting to be hit significantly by the oil slick are Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi, according to a BBC News article. The Navy has deployed approximately 42,000 feet of boom to contain the oil, but without enough success to avoid harmful results to the wetlands.
President Obama has banned oil drilling in any new areas in the Gulf of Mexico. He has also defended his move to start more offshore oil drilling in the future, even amidst this obviously uncontrollable disaster. He has pointed out that safety protocols that should be standard practice were not followed on the Deepwater Horizon rig.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano traveled to the site in order to oversee containment plans and execution, but also to investigate and determine the cause of the explosion that caused the eventual leak in the first place. 30 rigs and 47 production stations will also be investigated in the Gulf of Mexico to verify that safety precautions are being met.
Weather reports for the area suggest that rainfall combined with high winds and tides will create major setbacks in the oil spill recovery over the weekend.
It will probably take over a month to stop the rig from leaking 5,000 gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico each day, but major efforts are taking place to control and contain as much of it as possible. No matter what the result, this spill will inevitably go down as one of the worst in history.
These days has 162 situations of sickness reported while in the Lousisiana, 128 are those people workers, The oldest worker is 64 many years old in there. I feel sorry for these workers. I in reality hate those oil organization.
It is hard to deal with the fact that the people doing the most to clean up the spill are the ones in the most danger of becoming sick.
A massive Thank You goes out to anyone and everyone who has done their part in improving this dire situation.
You are both correct – that is why extra measures are being done to make sure further drilling operations are fully equipped with functioning technology, such as the blowout preventer that failed to activate fully on the Deepwater Horizon rig, that can stop these disasters before they begin.
Obama could not have picked a worse time to announce his push for more offshore oil drilling, but his response has been adequate (halting any new drilling locations in the Gulf, increasing safety precautions, investigating the cause of original explosion). We must applaud him for making these decisions without losing faith in the chance at finding energy independence for the U.S.
I agree Danielle. While in Alaska, we viewed many films on the Exxon oil spill and the
devastation it caused. We were told there was still oil on some of the coastline all these
years later. It is truly heartbreaking. It is obvious BP should have been more prepared
for such a catastrophe, and that is where your comments on the profits come in. Spend
more on prevention and an immediate, effective response for these kinds of events!
I am sure right now my love for the ocean and nature is probably obvious. But I want to say one more thing. I continually hear about drilling this, and drilling that. It is obvious to me that Exxon wasn’t enough to show how dangerous drilling is. I know that oil is necessary, but when I think about the loss of life, the loss the ocean is suffering and the lives that are affected because they will be put out of business because of the lack of fishing abilities. Was it worth it? How many more people and animals need to suffer before people realize that the earth and the ocean are not an exact science and maybe before being blinded by the amount of money will be brought in, maybe others well-being should be considered. (Sorry if this is a little harsh:))