Summary:
Both the government and oil industry were very unprepared for the huge gulf oil spill, which lead to a lot of environmental damage. The oil companies and government agencies learned lessons and got technological advancments from this disaster, but they still aren't prepared for another disaster like this one. Even though the oil companies made a multibillion-dollar profit over the past several years, they only put a little money into planning to control or clean up after a big spill. The government also didn't put the people, money, and technology into preparing for the spill. The Minerals Management Service was very unprepared for the spill, and even after reorganization, they are still unprepared if another spill occurs. They only had 4 or 5 employees working on preparing for this disaster. If they put more time into preparing for the spill they would have had better luck controlling it. So they came up with steps to prepare for a future disaster like this, hopefully they will be carried out and help with a future spill.
Opinion/Reflection:
I think it is ridiculous that both the oil industry and government were not prepared for this spill. Maybe if they were prepared for this spill it wouldn't have been as bad. Even if it did happen, and they were prepared for it, maybe they could have at least stopped it before it got to out of control like it is now. It is really a shame how much of the environment is polluted with oil. I really hope they can get this oil spill cleaned up soon so the environment can be healthier for the wildlife living in it.
Questions:
1. Do you think they will ever get this oil spill cleaned up? Explain.
2. If they ever get it cleaned up, how long do you think it will take? Explain.
3. Why do you think they didn't focus on preparing for this disaster? Explain.
It is definitely sad that no one was prepared for that tragic event of the oil spill. There are so many times when I want to turn a switch and rewind. It is ridiculous that BP was unprepared. I believe we should start preparing now for another one coming because no one knows when another oil spill will occur. How would it be different if we were actually prepared? How might have we acted? Would it have been efficient? These are the questions many people like me question because of BP's oil spill.
ReplyDelete1) I don't think it will be possible to clean up that much oil spill in an instant or a life time. There are still oil in the gulf and it will take more than a life time. Meaning, it will have to be passed through generations. With the rate of new technologies, we might figure out a way to take out most of the oil, but we will never get every last drop out of the gulf.
This is a website that has a map of the spill.
It shows you information on the spill.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/oil-spill-map.htm
If they're making a million-dollar profit from oil, I think they should use part of their profit to be able to have a better control a possible spill. If they don't want to receive bad media attention then they should have took a better care of their oil system in the first place. The oil companies should really care about the environment because who knows if there is going to be a world policy to ban oil production because of numerous oil spills on Earth. It's not safe for only four or five to be working to control the spills. The oil spill can affect the whole Earth and it's not very smart to have only small amount of people trying to fix it.
ReplyDelete3. I don't think they focused on working on it because they thought that it would never happen again because they were able to recover from last times, but they were wrong.
This is a link to an article of the Minerals Management Services in which they were involved with a scandal few years ago.
http://pogoblog.typepad.com/pogo/2010/04/mms-scandal-where-are-they-now-deepwater-horizon-edition.html
I think that it is outrageous that oil companies only have 4 or 5 employees preparing for a spill. Even though there necessarily won't be a spill every time oil is drilled, they should prepare for what might happen. A well known quote is "expect the unexpected". So what companies, including oil companies, should do is prepare for what might or might not happen. It wouldn't just help them with the clean up but it would also help with the reputation of the company. Whenever someone mentions BP oil company, the oil spill is the next topic to come up next. So if the oil company wants to remain standing, it is highly recommended that they have more than 5 employees in charge of the spill control.
ReplyDelete1. I don't think it is possible to clean up all of the oil that has been spilled in the water. Yes, it is possible to get all of the oil off the surface, but it isn't possible to get all of the oil out of the water. It has been spread out, sent down to the deep corners of the Gulf. It has been put into innocent animals who lived in that habitat. It is trapped in the cycle. We can only wait a few million years when that layer of the ocean turns into oil. Maybe if we have a breakthrough in technology, it would be possible, but I highly doubt that will happen.
Here is a link to a picture that shows how bad the oil had affected the water.
http://topnews.in/health/files/Gulf-spill.jpg
I am surprised that they could be unprepared for this because it's happened before in other places. 4 or 5 people working on preparation for this kind of thing seems extremely small and not very smart. Since oil is such a huge industry and people rely on it so much, you'd think that they'd be more prepared or at least more careful.
ReplyDelete1) it will be very difficult, but I do believe that they will get the oil spill cleaned up. it may not be in the next year or even the next ten years, but if it doesn't happen soon i have a feeling that people, mostly ecologists, will get even more angry and that might be a little bit of a motivator for BP to get their act together.
Here's a link to an article with a picture of an oil stained pelican:
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/36856/