Current Events 2

The Oily Gulf
Stephen Ornes
Monday.May.31st.2010
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/59809/title/FOR_KIDS_The_oily_Gulf
This article describes one of the most devastating environmental happenings in recent American history- The oily Gulf disaster. It takes place in the Golf coast of Mexico, at one of the offshore platforms whose owner is the British Petroleum. It happened on April. The 22 this year, but I’m sure that its’ consequences still remain. This disaster started at an offshore oil platform when one of the riser pipes are disconnected and started leaking on the depth of 5.000 ft. Most of the people from this facility escaped. But, unfortunately 11 of them died. On the picture below, you can see how this oily spill spread out- The spill is marked in Cyan Blue. This oil spilling causes huge environmental disaster- Whole water ecosystem has been interrupted. The American government has chosen 25% of the US portion of the Gulf for fishing- this means that they wanted to stop people eating contaminated fish. A lot of actions were taken out to stop this leaking but none gave serious results (Even 2 months later when this article was written)
The fact that has really concerned me was the different reports that the owner and the scientists gave about the limits of the pollution!!! The BP said that the leak was only 1,000 to 5,000 barrels per day, while the scientists from Perdue University, mechanical engineer Steve Wereley claimed that this leak was much bigger (76,000 and 109,000 barrels of oil per day) This article has really impressed me, but in a negative way. Number one, because of big environmental consequences that are presented not only on Gulf Coasts, but all over the sea world- I’m sure that this oil pollution is spread all over the world. This as well has really concerned me because I‘m asking how many years and actions will be necessary to clean all the oily mess that some other responsible oil facility owners deal with? What will happen if another oil drill is starting to leak, but in much less capacity- will the public be informed about the consequences? I’m very concerned with what is happening with all the other environmental disasters which are as huge as this one, but are occurring every day? I have connected this article with the things that we are learning now and one sea world ecosystem which needs to be balanced, which has its’ own rules and ratios, but which is interrupted with an Abiotic factor oily spill. This Abiotic factor has a biotic nature- unfortunately human nature.