The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill was one of the worst man made disasters in recent history. Back in 2010, an estimated 47,000 people and 7,000 boats/vessels were involved in the cleanup process. “It was estimated by a government-commissioned panel of scientists that 4,900,000 barrels of oil had already leaked into the Gulf.” (Pallardy) An excessive amount of oil has polluted the region. The government and BP had to take action as soon as possible, before the spill reaches further distances. The disaster affected all types of wildlife. More than 8,000 birds, sea turtles and marine mammals were found injured or dead in the six months after the spill. (National Wildlife Federation) Birds had their feathers coated in oil, which made it difficult for them to fly and regulate their body temperatures.
Many mammals ingested the oil which possibly led to ulcers and internal bleeding. As far as seven miles from the Deepwater Horizon well, deep sea corals perished heavily. Mother Nature took a real hit from this catastrophe.
BP and the government had used three methods to try to limit the damage, those methods were containment, collection and the use of dispersants. Containment booms were deployed over 4,200,000 feet in the Gulf. The goal of the booms were to be used as barriers to help protect the mangroves, marshes and anything closely affected by the disaster. The booms only went about 2 feet below the water surface, so this method was only effective in shallow and slow-moving waters. Criticism among the community arose because the booms became ineffective, as some began to wash up on shores, allowing oil to seep through the booms. The state of Louisiana developed a plan to construct barrier islands to help prevent the oil from contaminating the rest of the Gulf. This plan was also quickly criticized, as it was extremely extremely pricey cost point and its poor results.
The next method that was used to limit the damage, was collection. The oil was collected from the surface of the water through the use of skimmers. Skimmers are a tool designed to remove oil floating on top of a liquid surface. With this method, a total of 2,063 skimmers were used. Offshore skimmers were used too. A total of 60 open-water skimmers were used and 12 purpose-built vehicles were used to aid in the skimming. A lot of the large-scale skimmers exceeded the limit. (Rubin) The use of the product Corexit, the oil was too dispersed to collect.
The final method that was used to help nullify the situation, was disbursement.
BP decided that the next best solution was through the use of Corexit. Corexit is a product line of oil disbursements and was used to get the oil to float to the surface of the water. Throughout the entirety of the disaster, a total of 1.84 million gallons of Corexit were used. The original use of Corexit was supposed to be experimental. Quickly, critics came out against the use of Corexit. Critics said that Corexit was already toxic to the marine life and wildlife, but when it is mixed together with the oil, it becomes more toxic than the oil alone. Bob Dudley, BP’s Chief Executive, defended use of the dispersant. “The toxicity of Corexit is about the same as dish soap, which is effectively what it is and how it works,” is what he told the stockholders of BP. (Visser) The use of Corexit was an extremely controversial one. A study from Georgia Tech and Universidad Autonoma de Aguascalientes in Environmental Pollution journal stated that Corexit increased the toxicity of the oil by 52 times. (Hertsgaard) Mixing oil with the disbursement increased toxicity and made the Deepwater Horizon spill
worse.