The Impact Of The Oil Spill-Anastasia Nicholas

How does something like an oil spill even happen? There is a long list of reasons of why this could happen. A common reason is a careless mistake that could've been avoided. There has been cases where oil tanker ships have actually ran into other ships which caused the tanker to leak oil into the surrounding waters. For example, in 2014 750 barrels of crude oil was leaked into the Lower Mississippi River because a tanker ran into a towboat. Another very common way oil spills happen are through and machine malfunction or explosion. This is what happened in the BP Deepwater oil spill. A explosion damaged one of the rigs and they completely lost all ability to control the rig. The fire burned for over 36 hours until the rig sank.

There are four main reasons as to why this oil spill happened, but they were all mechanical flaws. One reason was that the borehole (a hole at the bottom of the boat used to locate oil and gas) was not completely covered with cement which allowed the oil to leak out of the boat. Another reason was that the boat contained two main

Oil is a resource that we humans need and sometimes the oil is transported in ships and mined from underwater. There have been many cases where the ships that carried the oil have had a leakage. All the oil that was in the ship would be let out into the ocean. This is an issue because oil and water do not mix. It leaves a layer of oil on top of the water and it can affect everything in the area for a very long time. This usually requires human action for the

Oil spills are notorious environmental hazards. Spills are costly to clean up, and they impact hundreds of

An oil spill represents an immediate fire hazard. The Kuwaiti oil fires produced air pollution that caused respiratory distress. The Deepwater Horizon explosion killed eleven oil rig workers. The fire resulting from the Lac-Mégantic derailment killed 47 and destroyed half of the town’s centre.

Oil spills have often occurred too many times in this world. Unfortunately, when this does happen, there is always losses of life. Many people are affected by it. There is always a price to pay. On March 24, 1989 the Exxon Valdez oil tanker spilt all its oil into the ocean.

The animal death toll was far greater than that of the human (Clean & Energy, 1). Over four thousand animals died, and more were injured as a result of the British Petroleum oil spill (Clean & Energy, 1).

Understanding how oil spills often happen makes it easy to see that not only are they messy and dangerous, they are also inevitable. They can be lessened though. For years we have been told that drilling for oil was safe and that the chances of a catastrophic oil spill happening was too small to worry about. This was

Oil spills can happen anywhere and anytime. You don’t really hear about them when they happen, because some people don’t think they’re a big deal. They can be prevented if oil companies didn’t use old pipes that’s been there for years. The state of Peru has brought in this oil company called Petroperu. When they were brought in they told the Indigenous people “with oil, you and Peru will grow.” Since then the Oil company has spilled tons of crude oil in the Amazon river contaminating communities water and food supply.

Oil spills into rivers, bays, and the ocean most often are caused by accidents involving tankers, barges, pipelines, refineries, drilling rigs, and storage facilities. Spills can be caused by people making mistakes or being careless, equipment breaking down, hurricanes, deliberate acts by terrorists,

Oil drilling affects thousands of marine animals in their ecosystems and has caused massive damage before. For example, on April 20, 2010, 210 million gallons of oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico. It is considered the largest accidental marine oil spill in the world and the largest environmental disaster in U.S History. (“Deepwater Horizon.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 06 July 2017. Web. 06 July 2017.) “As the Deepwater Horizon disaster shows, it’s hard to contain and remove oil that is spilling into the ocean.” (Hamalainen, Karina. "DRILLING FOR OIL." Science World Sep 27 2010: 8,12,TE8. ProQuest. Web. 30 June 2017.) This clearly states the known severity of oil spills. Oil in the ocean is hard to clean up, imagine how the animals that live in the affected areas struggle to survive. It stays in the water for

Oil is a value of a lot of people in this world, it can take many years for it to be formed, not to mention that it's very expensive resource to remove from the ground and the ocean floor. Next when oil spills it covers the surface getting thinner and thinner until it looks like a rainbow, this rainbow is called the Sheene. The oil spills are very dangerous for marine life, either making it so the fur of the animal is no longer able to repel liquids or making it so they can't float or keep warm. Similarly Other animals (such as birds) may ingest the oil in the water and get very sick. The first step is to contain the oil and make it stop spreading, once we do that the damage the oil can do is more minor. The next step is to scare off the unharmed

In Santa Barbara, California, in 1969, even though the spilled oil was not even very large, thousands of dolphins, seals, and birds were killed (Ivanovich, and Hays, 2008). Moreover, in the Gulf of Mexico, 82,000 birds, roughly 6,165 sea turtles, approximately 25,900 marine mammals, and indefinite amount of oysters, fishes, corals, and crabs have been harmed or killed by the spilled oil. Additionally, the spilled has killed many aquatic plants. ( A Center for Biological Diversity Report, 2008). As a result, vegetation, which are the most essential part of the ecological pyramid, and other animals will be affected negatively by the dangerous impact of the spilled oil, which probably is going to cause some problems in the ecological pyramid. In fact, any defect in the ecological pyramid may become a dreadful problem that occurs an ecological

Over 8000 animals were reported dead 6 months after the spill, including many that were on the endangered species list (7). Subsequently, seafood prices increased affecting restaurants and supermarkets. People abstained from going to beaches covered in oil, water sports and other aquatic attractions which meant that all organisations involved in tourism such as hotels, tour operators, restaurants and boat rental companies were affected (1). Furthermore, the method of cleaning up the oil by “in-situ burning” (burning oil in a contained area on the surface of the water), had adverse effects on the environment as the burning off of the oil led to mutations and increased mortality due to pollution.

Out of all of these ways, oil spills can cause a noticeably excessive amount of damage to the ocean. Although only 12% of the oil entering the sea is caused by spills, they can deteriorate ocean life and environment more than any other pollution. One gallon of used oil spilled into the ocean, which contains toxic chemicals and heavy metals severely dangerous to the micro-organism at the base of the food chain, can cause an eight-acre layer