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The oil spill -- what really happened?
can anyone give me a summary of what happened exactly?
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My friend explains it, and its funny!
-E
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On April 20th the rig (which is a ship that latches on to an oil well to drill or pump the oil) called the Deepwater Horizon exploded. 11 people died. Days later we learn that the explosion happened as they were trying to close the well and move the rig away so a different rig could come and pump the oil. It appears that closing the well was rushed and proper safety measures were ignored. An important safety valve failed tests earlier that day, but was not fixed.
By Friday April 23rd BP (the company which owned Deepwater Horizon) says that the environmental impact will be minimal, and the coast guard says that no oil appears to be spilling.
On Saturday April 24th, two leaks are found. 700,000 galloons of oil were spilled in the initial implosion. The leaks found on this day are estimated to be leaking 109,000 gallons of oil a day into the water. Estimates of how much oil is actually spilling each day have gotten bigger and bigger as we get more information.
By Tuesday April 27th, the oil slick is over 100 miles wide. By Friday the 30th, it's visible from outer space.
On May 3rd BP starts to build 'containment chambers' to place over the leaks. They had never been tested at such great depths. The first one failed as soon as they tried it, the second stopped about 40% of the oil for a few days, then failed. All other attempts at stopping or slowing the leak have failed.
The spill has pretty much just continued on like that since then. The oil has reached the shores of Florida and Louisiana as well as caused large 'dead zones' to form. These are huge zones in the ocean where everything, all fish, animals and plants, die. It is now likely that this oil spill will destroy the majority of the wet lands on the coast in the next three years. There is really no fixing that part of this - it's pretty much a done deal.
Right now, the best chance they have of stopping the oil is drilling a 'relief well'. That's a second well that they could pump to reduce the pressure of the one that is leaking and make it easier to close the leaks. This will not be finished until mid-August - at the earliest, and it might not work the first time.
Before this spill an oil company was only responsible for up to 10 million dollars of damages by American law. This spill cost 10 million dollars in just the first day.
Many people are upset with President Obama, who has been very critical of BP for a few reasons: He has been critical of them lying to the government when they applied to build this well (they claimed to be able to handle a spill even larger then this one), and for a while they kept on giving money to their supporters and shareholders, even though they had no idea what the final cost of this spill would be.
Earlier this week, the president put pressure on BP and the company agreed to set aside 2 billion dollars to help compensate and clean up the spill. Many people, mostly conservatives, think this was unfair of the president to use his power to make BP do something that legally, they weren't required to do.
And this is pretty much where it stands now. The oil is still flowing. It will cost far more than 2 billion dollars to clean it up and we probably CAN'T clean it all up. Thousands of miles of wet lands have now already begun their slow deaths, and we have no idea what the long term effects will be of more oil then ever before having leaked into the water.
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