BP Oil Spill By: JAckson and Jake

What happened?

On April 20th, 2010 an oil rig called the Deep Water Horizon exploded spilling oil all through out the gulf of Mexico. This incident caused the death of 11 workers, and 17 more were injured. The main pipe line had pressure built up caused the well witch was over one mile underwater to rupture, leading to the spread of oil all through out the gulf. This incident had a major impact on the ability to fish; it also harmed nearly 1/3 of the consumable seafood in the U.S.

When and Where did this happen?

This occurred April 20th, 2010 at 9:45 pm, on an oil located in the Gulf of Mexico called the Deep Water Horizon.

How did it happen?

There were 8 things that led to the oil spill: dodgy cement, valve failure, pressure test misinterpreted, leak not spotted soon enough, valve failure no. 2, overwhelmed separator, no gas alarm, no battery for BOP. The cement had a crack which led to leaking oil. Then the valves stopped working, and the workers read the results wrong for the seal of the cement. The leak wasn't spotted quick enough so there was another leak in the valve but the alarm didn't work so no one knew and the battery should have shut the valves but it left the surface so it didn't work.

3-4 species that were directly impacted

Dolphins, Sea Turtles, and Birds. Dolphins had some of their species that declined by half and it says that it will take up to 100 years for that species to recover. The sea turtle population declined by 167,000 turtles during the disaster. And with the birds, 93 species had been exposed to oil and some of them had been covered in it so they had to be cleaned but many of them died.

How did they solve the problem?

They fixed the hole in the system by plugging it or adding a steel casing to another relief tunnel witch led to the same place but got there safely and it should be a permanent fix for the rig itself so nothing like that should ever happen again at least on that rig.

What could we do to avoid the disaster in the future?

What they are going to do to avoid it next time is having a lot more safety checks on the alarm and shutdown system because that is what failed and made this the oil spill. The second thing is they are making all of the oil companies rigs are having to get the newest, safest technologies to have a safe and oil free ocean.

Works Cited

Credits:

Created with images by skeeze - "oil rig explosion fire disaster" • wiselywoven - "Gulf Oil Spill: Reading Creation's Lament (SustainableTraditions.com)" • NOAA's National Ocean Service - "Heavy Band of Oil" • Bruce Clay Australia - "bp-oil-spill" • MindfulWalker - "Pelicans Covered In Oil, Grand Island" • NOAA's National Ocean Service - "Oil at the Convergence Zone" • DVIDSHUB - "Deepwater Horizon Flaring Operation"

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