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Oil Spill in Gulf of Mexico reaching shores

The oil leaked is now coming ashore, seeping into the Louisiana marshes and washing up on Alabama beaches. A satellite taken picture shows an oily track stretching over several hundred miles of the Gulf of Mexico. Underwater cameras with live feed has shown that oil is still gushing up from the seabed in a sinuous, ceaseless heave, as if there no were changes since the accident first happened.

It has been more than five weeks since the Deepwater Horizon rig sank, and the oil spill that resulted is very conspicuously continuing, spilling around 5,000 barrels a day, outside scientists have estimated that the rate is as much as ten times greater. Teams of ships have skimmed up millions of barrels of oily water, and unfurled miles of barrier boom. Tony Hayward, the company's CEO, vows to clean up “every last drop” of oil that reaches land.

The larger issue is that oil is still leaking. British Petroleum (BP) has thrown ideas at the situation, none of which, to date, have made a big difference. The company has managed to thread a long, thin tube into the broken pipe, but that is only drawing off a fraction of the flow. On May 26th BP started the plan "top kill" which is to pump heavy drilling mud into the blowout preventer, the set of valves at the top of the well to which that broken pipe is attached. This “top” is meant to get enough mud into the well to stop the flow of oil (see illustration below). More than one attempt may be necessary, as may the injection of a “bridging agent” to further gum up the blowout preventer.

According to a new poll from CBS News, public opinion is contemptuous of BP, and nearly half of Americans disapprove of Barack Obama’s response, which has done less than some would like to interrupt business as usual. The president seems to have decided that a tougher tone is in order. On May 27th the administration extended a moratorium on deep-water drilling by six months. Mr Obama is expected to announce new safety measures for the industry imminently.

As the federal government becomes frustrated with BP, state and local authorities are frustrated with both. Louisiana officials want to start building sand berms as barrier islands, to block oil from entering the fragile marsh ecosystems. In the meantime, the frantic response continues. The damage is still spreading, and will continue to do so for some time even if the leak itself is plugged.
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Details and explanation of the "top kill" plan
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After thoughts:
Finally after 5 weeks of endless leaking of oil and attempts to solve the leak issue, the BP has finally come up with a plan that can solve the leaking problem, as they claim to. Hopefully this plan will succeed as the damage causes by the oil leaked has been fatal to the environment, such as leading to death of many micro-organism which disrupt the food chain system in marine life and leading to death of birds and . If the issue of the oil leaking is still not solved, there will be more leakage which will make cleaning up of oil slick tougher, which leads to more damage to the environment.

Now, the government should focus on the leaked oil more and send in reinforcement to prevent the oil from the reaching the shore, because the previous help they have sent in failed to contain all the oil far away or a fair distance from civilization. It is advisable to do so because once the oil completely reaches the shores, beaches, etc. It will be harder for people to clean it up or take a long time to restore the tainted beach to its original form
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related post(s): http://cookieswithkream.blogspot.com/2010/05/gulf-of-mexico-oil-spill.html


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Friday, May 28, 2010
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