We all know about the Gulf Oil spill which occurred after an explosion at the Deepwater Horizon Mobile Offshore Drilling Unit on April 20, 2010. The explosion killed eleven workers, injured seventeen others and set off what has turned out to be the largest environmental disaster in United States history. Although hearing about the spill is almost unavoidable on the news, it is easy to not give it too much thought when you live in a land-locked state like Indiana.
Recently, I heard a news commentator say that the Gulf of Mexico as we know it, will never been the same again in our lifetime. I immediately thought of my childhood memory of swimming in the warm waters of the Gulf and how excited I was to see such a vast body of water for the first time. For some reason, the effect of the spill really dawned on me that day – and it made me very, very sad.
No one really knows how much oil has been spewing into the Gulf these last few months. The Department of Energy estimates 1.4 million gallons/day, BP estimates a “worst case” scenario of 2.5 million gallons/day and many experts agree it could be as high as 4.2 million gallons/day. At the time of this writing, by the lowest estimates approximately 85 million gallons of oil have spilled in to the Gulf already and that number continues to grow daily. To see current, live feed of the oil spill, please access the following link:
http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/05/view_live_video_feed_of_bp_gul.html
So, my question to you this week is, “How should we go about “cleaning up” this disaster, and what can we do to prevent disasters such as this in the future?” Answers are due no later than Tuesday, July 20th, 2010. My heart and prayers go out to our fellow Americans affected by this disaster. To donate to the wildlife rescue, please go to: http://www.nwrawildlife.org/
Well I'm not really sure what we could do in the furture on order to help prevent this from happening again. But I do think we could be doing more in order to help come up with new ways of powering vehicles so that gas and oil wouldn't be such a need in America. Not necessarily just vehicles, because oil is not just used for vehicles but for all kinds of equipment and things. As far as coming up with equipment and safer ways of drilling I am not that knowledgeable in the equipment used today. So I don't have a really good way to drill and get the products we need. Unfortunately as sad as this is eventually bad things have a chance of happening in such a high danger profession. As a possible solution I guess BP as a company should have maybe had a little more visual and vitals put in place so they can see possible stress cracks and dangers surfacing. I know that human hair has an uncanny way of soaking up oil, and many hair salons are doing donations of saving hair and shipping it to the gulf so hair can be used as an absorber for the oil...with that being said maybe that should be brought a little more to the forefront and Americans could be made aware of that solution. It's cheap and easy to do, and it couldn't hurt to try and get more people on board with it. People donate hair to locks of love all the time, so maybe people would want to donate to help save the environment.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Heath that we need to find ways to be less dependent on oil. I guess the way I see the oil spill and what's being done to stop/prevent it is what the media tells me, which isn't really a lot. It almost seems like everyone is twiddling their thumbs waiting for someone else to do something or to come up with a way to fix it. I also agree that Americans should be made more aware of how they can help, but at the same time I know how people get so wrapped up in their own lives they forget there's more to the world. I heard that golf balls will help plug up the leak, but I'm not 100% sure how that works.
ReplyDeletei agree as well, i think that we need to stop depending on other countries for everything not just oil... as far as cleaning it up, i think that maybe some how every one or huge corporations that can afford it should send out a groups of people to go to the gulf to clean up and still get paid like they were working in the office. i dont know a lot of people would like to go and help (like me), but i just cant because i have school and also cant afford to just take off and volenteer my time to help out, and i think thats what a lot of the problem comes from. and then there are also the people that just dont care and wouldnt volenteer any way because it doesnt effect them. so yeah i guess pay "volenteers" so that we can go and help cause most people cant afford to do it other wise.
ReplyDeleteIn reference to Sara's post, I kind of feel the same way. I feel like no one wants to do anything until the leak is actually somewhat contained.
ReplyDeleteAside from that, perhaps this disaster will bring about new methods and technology for cleaning up oil spills. Technology that will make future spills easier to contain and clean up. Maybe this is the wake up-call (a disastrous one) that people needed to nudge them to make something new. I hadn't heard the thing about hair soaking up oil, that's really ingenious. It would take an awful lot of hair to clean up all that oil, though.
I also think that minimizing the need for oil would lessen the chance for things like this to happen, unfortunately oil companies will do anything to stay in business. Their companies being such an enormous part of world trade and economy makes them a formidable force.
Epic fail, BP.
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ReplyDeleteIn reference to the previous posts, I agree that we need to find a replacement for oil. I also feel that Americans should be made more aware of what is going on in order to be a help to the people and animals in need. Unfortunately, like Heath I am not that knowledgeable on the issue at hand, so as far as cleaning all that oil up I don’t have any suggestions. On the other hand, preventing something like this from happening again I think the only thing we can do is learn from this enormous mistake, figure out our weaknesses, and go from there.
ReplyDeleteI think it's promising that, as of yesterday, the oil was no longer leaking. Hopefully they can keep it that way. I found a video on youtube that talks about it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljV4cJofc6o
ReplyDeleteAs for cleaning up the mess, I heard that the best way to clean up oil is with hay. Heath had mentioned hair, but I think it would be much easier to obtain large quantities of hay rather than hair. I found a video that shows how effective hay can be at taking the oil out of water. You can see the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6UxiWnCc_g
The only way I think that we can prevent more accidents like this in the future is to be more cautious and always prepare for the worst possible outcome. Maybe make the pipes thicker or protect the pipes with an outer layer so that if the internal pipe bursts, there would be another pipe covering it to keep the oil contained.
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ReplyDeleteI agree with Tom and was relieved to hear that the oil is no longer leaking. However, I disagree that hay would be the best method to use due to the fact that cleaning up the oil soaked hay itself could potentially be an even bigger problem. I think perhaps the best ways to clean up the oil spill is a combination of techniques.
ReplyDeleteI think bioremediation would be a good tool to use. Bioremediation which is defined as any process that uses microorganisms, fungi, green plants or their enzymes to return the natural environment altered by contaminants to its original condition. This process does however take a condsiderable amount of time especially with the size of the spill. I also think using controlled burns and water-oil seperating devices could be very effective combined all together.
As far as preventing this from happening in the future, I think awareness could definitely be our biggest tool. Hopefully the other companies will take a more proactive route from here on as far as protecting the pipes and the shut off valves.
I agree with Heath's original post. I saw on the news that there's a company (CW Roberts) that have found a solution to help/aid in the oil spill. They did a small demo on how hay can quickly obsurb and remove a majority of the hay. Although this is a great idea, more concerns occur, such as, what do we do with the hay once it's done its job? or what happens to the fish that can swim (if any) through it? and how are we to drop a vast amount of hay to have a full coverage of the oil spill.?
ReplyDeleteAs far what can be done in the future, I think awareness and more careful planning needs to be reenforced. I know that there has recently been a cap placed on the valve but it isn't permanent but what happens when that valve gives out or needs to be replaced? I honestly don't know what other measures could be taken but its unfortunate to know that the Gulf Coast will never be the same and there are so many animals, small businesses, and people effected by it. All we can do (as a country and community) is to volunteer our time and money,help spread the awareness and hope that it never happens again.
Here is a link to the video of the CW Roberts employees' demo...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5SxX2EntEo
I can't even begin to answer the questions of how to remedy the oil "spill" or how to prevent such a catastrophe from happening again. I'm not educated anywhere close to having answers to these problems. I do feel the loss of lives, both human and animal is a great tradgedy. Had the time and money been spent early on in regards to design and maintenace of the oil rig and such like it, this could possibly have been prevented or not as monumental. I understand that "what ifs" don't solve the problem, but I also believe that greed is usually at the root of such events. The money spent originally to evaluate and test the quality of the equipment would have been just a small fraction of what is being paid out now for claims and clean up. Corporate heads were probably more focused on their bottom line (and their own personal gain) rather than the safety of their employees and our nations wildlife.
ReplyDeleteI only agree with Lucas, his silence illustrates his distain and frustration with the situation we're in.
ReplyDeleteAs americans we shouldn't be concerned with the past and I will take the liberty to restate the question posted by Stephanie. How do we still utilize the oil spilling into the Gulf of so many Drunken Spring Breaks as apposed to JUST cleaning it up?
Here's my solution: Cars that run on salt water and oil.
If marketed correctly I predict this "Natural Disaster" will be known a true MIRACLE!!
Kendrick, Thursday Mornings.
I feel awful about what has happened in the Gulf. Stephanie you said something that clicked with me as well. You mentioned your childhood experiences swimming in the Gulf and how it made you sad! My first trip to Florida was my freshman year in High School and I had the time of my life and now it would be totally different.
ReplyDeleteI feel that this problem is completely BPs fault and they need to pay for damages, cleanup, and workers/people hurt during this awful accident. They should also make it priority to test all machinary before implamenting it into use.
I don’t really know how they are going to clean up this huge mess. I’m shocked that BP didn’t have an emergency plan on how to take care of something like this. You should always be prepared for a “what if…” situation. At least they finally got it capped off. I heard this morning the government is having doubts about the cap though. There might be a possibility that the cap could cause oil and gas to leak out somewhere else like the ocean floor. They also said this could cause the well to collapse! So it looks like the government wants the cap off so they can pump some of the oil to ships, but BP disagrees and wants to keep the well capped. I hope they figure it out and come up with a quicker solution to cleaning it up!
ReplyDeleteAs far as a different solution for fueling our vehicles, I think pushing towards electric cars or hybrids will be better for the environment and cut down our dependency on oil.
http://www.hybridcars.com/electric-car
I don't know what we can do to prevent it in the future! And when it comes to cleaning it up i think BP should be responsible to clean it up there the reason its there!
ReplyDeletei never put a lot of thought into it but i also believe there isn't any easy way in cleaning the spill either but if anything maybe a huge water pump could suck it up and as for future references put a freaking valve of the pipes for god sakes so that if something like this happens at least they can do is turn the valve off and millions of gallons of oil won't get into our oceans or gulfs or any other bodys of water
ReplyDeleteI was not aware just HOW much oil was spilling into the gulf! thats terrible! I did buy that Dawn dish soap that donates to wildlife preserve who clean up animals after oil spills so everyone should do that! :) also, i've herd that people are sending alpaca fur to Florida to help soak up the oil which is a great idea. BP needs to be doing more to clean up the water and find a way to stop this mess considering they were the ones who made it.
ReplyDeleteI feel we that BP should put out more of the skimmers to collect the oil and also use that new ship they were talking about that filters the water it sucks up. The issue right now shouldn't be about cost but rather we messed up so we must fix it. The cost isn't going to hurt BP as much as they have hurt all the fishermen and tourism business. Also if they just be more up front about things and tell people how they could help I'm sure people will be willing to donate what they could and give up some hair to help collect the oil. Also this would also be a great way to give temporary employment a rise by hiring people to help with the cleanup. Many ways BP could help out the economy. I would say to for future prevention BP needs to come up with a disaster plan and more monitoring of all their wells and pipes to catch early signs of distress.
ReplyDeleteHonestly I think that we should wait until they have fully stopped the leak before we even bother trying to clean it up. I understand that there are animals and other things being caught in the oil and we can work to get those cleaned up. But if this new cap breaks or the new leak that has formed gets even bigger. Then we will just have another huge mess. Stop the leak fully and then clean it all up. As to what we can do to clean up the oil...I have no possible idea for that. I don't know anything about that type of thing so I can't honestly give any good ideas to help them.
ReplyDeleteI agree with most of what has already been said. We should find ways to be less dependent on oil, and now that the oil has stopped leaking we should begin to clean. Thinking about the hurricane season is what scares me the most. The combination of the two will result in it being rained upon us. After researching further, I feel like BP should be taking more responsibility, but at the same time they are 5,000ft deep in oil which makes this situation much more difficult to deal with than anything we've seen before. I honestly don't see a solution for this. At most, maybe we can cut off it's path and isolate the spill the best we can.
ReplyDeleteI watched on a local Indy news channel that a retired engineer from here in Indianapolis has created some sort of simple device capable of separating the water from the oil, saving both. And as it turns out, it's made of extremely simple, inexpensive materials, mostly PVC piping. However, no one will pick up on it. No companies will buy it. It burn me a little bit that Kevin Costner used his disposable income to become America's savior, but this man, with real engineering know-how and intelligence, can't do his part to help because he doesn't have $20 million of his own income to use.
ReplyDeleteAlso, it is tough to say, but we can't blame this entirely on BP. They are pumping oil for us. We are the ones who are so dependent on oil, that we risk the integrity of our own planet to gather it. Yes, BP should probably been a lot more careful with their equipment. But I think that instead of finding someone to blame, we need to do what we can to help resolve the problem together. BP can't do it by themselves.
I really don't know how we can clean up the mess but i do agree with the other post that BP should of had a plan on cleaning a mess like this up as a just in case. As for preventing this from happening in the future could be like everyone else is saying try to find another means than using oil, but companies also need have a back up plan and better training so something like this doesn't happen again and if by chance it does they can't get it cleaned up before it gets way out of hand like this oil spill did
ReplyDeletei feel like we already have the resources to clean up this mess, but then again it's all about the money. im sure we have ships that can filter the oil from the gulf, but why did it take 3 months to stop the leak for now. should there not be a shut off valve before they tap well. how can we prevent this again, stop off shore drilling and if we absolutely need to start drilling those wells, companies like bp must have a plan in place if something bad were to happen and if they already have a plan they need to fix it.
ReplyDeleteTristan Sewell
ReplyDeleteSorry to be one of the last to reply.
Cleaning up this mess is no small feat and will likely take several different ways, many of which have been mentioned by previous replies to this thread, and many years to even begin to make a dent in the damage we have caused.
As to what we should do in the future, I feel we should learn our lesson from the past considering an almost identical situation happened over 30 years ago.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHmhxpQEGPo&utm_source&utm_medium&utm_campaign
For those who can't watch videos it can be summed up in the quote "The only thing they have gotten more technologically advanced at is Drilling Deeper" The only difference between now and then is 5000 feet of water compared to 200 feet.
As I typically don't keep up with many social issues due to a busy schedule and lack of news stations to watch, I didn't even hear about the oil spill until a few weeks after it happened. Needless to say I was shocked and appalled that it had been going on for just a few short weeks. Now that it has finally seemed to be stopped somewhat after 3 months completely blows my mind.
ReplyDeleteWith what little education I already have on the matter, it seems to me that something should have been in place to prevent this from ever happening at all. I hope that other oil companies will at least learn from this mistake and take measures to make sure we never experience another diaster like this again.
As far as clean up goes, I personally believe that BP should be responsible for it. They've severely damaged the ecosystem and it has affected the lives off too many Americans. I'm sure they have enough money to clean up the mess they've made, and it seems like it would be their only smart move if they ever want to rebuild the public's trust.
It is true that this is an unfortunate event that will have serious impacts on our future environment and our following generations. I could not imagine losing a loved one to something as this. If there was one way we could view the question "how do we prevent this in the future?", it is obvious that we will have a constant reminder for the years to come. There is a lot of propaganda regarding the health of our planet and the impact humans are having on it. Some of it may be true as well as most is probably garbage used for individual agendas, but we can all agree that being conscious of our habits and procedures and how those will affect our children will certainly change from all of this. I can say I have been pleased to see our culture leaning towards one that is more environmentally aware of our actions. If we can find one positive out of this situation, let it be that we have learned a huge lesson in how we need to realize that with our growing technology, our responsibility to our planet and our neighbors grow equally as well.
ReplyDeleteI think that in order to properly clean up this oil leak we need to take the help that foreign companys are offering us and the help of anyone that is willing. the government needs to step in and tell BP that there chance is over and they are gonna have to pay for it to be done right. if BP would have got in there and done it right when they first new it was happening we wouldnt have this problem. In the mean time we need to worry about the people that can't work because of the spill, these are people that accually have jobs and families to feed and most of them dont want government help they just want to get back to work.
ReplyDeleteLet's see where to start, I think that BP should pay for lost wages to all the fishermen that depend on the Gulf providing their living. I mean it is pretty serious when these people are taking their own lives over the "spill". And should take responsibility for the damage of our enviroment in a world that is hurting enough as it is. I believe BP should do some jailtime and be put out of business. I do argeed with the class that we do need to find an alternative to oil to eliminate or atleast limit our use of it. We as a country are starting to try find those alternatives, but at a slow pace. Hopefully, this dreadful incident will light a fire under America's ass to work a little faster. How to clean it up is where its going to be tricky. I think maybe a filter would work, but I really don't know how or what to use or do to clean the mess.
ReplyDeleteThere shouldn't be anymore oil spills in the future because this country has so much knowledge and new technology that they can do better. This oil spill for sure could have been prevented, but some people are hard headed and don't listen. So what they need to do is fix that leak they know the problem and clean the water. Help whatever life they can because everybody is being affected by this.
ReplyDeletei notice people talking about how its all BP's fault and they should be the ones cleaning it up... it you want to get down to the source of whos fault it is you will learn its initially our government. i say this because the land that the oil rigs are on is owned by our US government and least to the companies such as BP, so i believe if its anyones fault its theirs. now i realize that people see BP not doing anything about the spill, the media isnt going to tell you the whole picture. on top of all that our government is all about money and not so much the people.
ReplyDeleteI think that after this happend people will be more cautioned to pay attention so something like this doesnt happen again. I agree with the class when they think that BP should have to pay for thier mistakes.
ReplyDeleteI am not really sure on how we should go about vleaning up the diaster. I know the idea that it will clean itself up isnt the best solution to the problem. There has to be some way to try and make it better. In the future, maybe we can see about using another method for getting oil from point a to point b. Not too sure about how that would happen, but it is something to ponder.
ReplyDeleteI remember reading that they used this cleaner, like dawn, to clean up the oil. It was supposibly working well until they realized the cleaing material was over taking the water. The best way I could think of to keep things like this from happening would be to develop better eqiupment to handle the drilling and loads. I would work on finding better resources to fix spills quickly. Maybe some sort of soaking up material that can be placed at the bases of drilling sites for any leaks. Luckily those who are responsible are being held responsible, so it will make them work harder to avoid these issues in the future.
ReplyDelete