Deepwater Horizon oil spill
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The Deepwater Horizon oil spill (also referred to as the "BP oil spill") was an industrial disaster which began on April 20, 2010, off of the coast of the United States in the Gulf of Mexico on the BP-operated Macondo Prospect, considered the largest marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry and estimated to be 8 to 31 percent larger in volume than the previous largest, the Ixtoc I oil spill, also in the Gulf of Mexico. Caused in the aftermath of a blowout and explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil platform, the United States federal government estimated the total discharge at 4.9 MMbbl (210,000,000 US gal; 780,000 m³). Reports in early 2012 indicated that the well site was still leaking. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is regarded as one of the largest environmental disasters in world history.
Quotes
[edit]- Like all of you, and the world out there, I have suffered a huge sense of frustration at not being able to stop the loss. (Tony Hayward)
- The Gulf disaster is worse than a terrible oil leak. It is the product of a failed energy policy that looked at profits before people and environment. (Robert Redford), nrdc.org
- Divine intervention is needed to solve the disaster in the gulf, as man's efforts have been futile. Politicians should call for a day of prayer for a miracle to happen. (Sarah Palin)
- Williams was the chief electronics technician for Transocean ...
Managing electronics on the Deepwater Horizon had inured Williams to emergency alarms. Gas levels had been running high enough to prohibit any “hot” work such as welding or wiring that could cause sparks. Normally, the alarm system would have gone off with gas levels as high as they were. However, the alarms had been disabled in order to prevent false alarms from waking people in the middle of the night. But the emergency announcement that came over the PA system on the night of April 20 was clearly no false alarm.
Moments after the announcement, Williams was jolted by a nearby thud and a hissing sound, followed by the revving of one of the rig’s engines. Before he knew it, there were two explosions forcing him and other crew members to abandon ship by jumping into the partially flaming ocean. ... Of the 126 workers on board the Deepwater Horizon, 17 were injured, including Williams, and 11 were killed. The rig burned for 36 hours, combusting the 700,000 gallons of oil that were on board, leaving a trail of smoke over 30 miles long. The Deepwater Horizon sank on April 22, taking with it the top pipe of the well and parts of the system that were supposed to prevent blowouts from occurring.- Christina Ingersoll, Richard M. Locke, and Cate Reavis, BP and the Deepwater Horizon Disaster of 2010. MIT Sloan School of Management, Case Study. 2012. (28 pages; quote from pp. 1–2)
- Current estimates suggest that the Deepwater Horizon (DH) blowout resulted in the release of approximately 4.4 million barrels ± 20% (7.0 × 105 m3) into the northern Gulf of Mexico over a 3-month period during the summer of 2010 (Crone and Tolstoy 2010). The leak was a result of a deepwater rig explosion on 20 April 2010 due to methane gas release after drilling an exploratory well. An attempt to activate a safety feature to prevent a blowout failed. After burning for 36 hr, the entire platform sank to the seafloor.
Because of concerns over seafood safety, on 2 May 2010, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) initiated closures of federal waters to commercial and recreational fishing; Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and eventually Florida subsequently instituted fisheries closures in state waters, in coordination with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ... By 21 June, closures covered approximately 37% of the Gulf of Mexico (225,290 km2), extending east from Atchafalaya Bay, Louisiana, to Panama City, Florida (NOAA 2010b). The well was capped on 15 July, and on 19 September, relief wells were completed that permanently disabled the well.- Julia M. Gohlke, Dzigbodi Doke, Meghan Tipre, Mark Leader, and Timothy Fitzgerald, (2011) . "A review of seafood safety after the Deepwater Horizon blowout". Environmental Health Perspectives 119 (8): 1062–1069. DOI:10.1289/ehp.1103507. (quote from p. 1062)
- The Deepwater Horizon oil spill constituted an ecosystem-level injury in the northern Gulf of Mexico. Much oil spread at 1100–1300 m depth, contaminating and affecting deepwater habitats. Factors such as oil-biodegradation, ocean currents and response measures (dispersants, burning) reduced coastal oiling. Still, > 2100 km of shoreline and many coastal habitats were affected. Research demonstrates that oiling caused a wide range of biological effects, although worst-case impact scenarios did not materialize. Biomarkers in individual organisms were more informative about oiling stress than population and community indices. Salt marshes and seabird populations were hard hit, but were also quite resilient to oiling effects. Monitoring demonstrated little contamination of seafood.
- Jonny Beyer, Hilde C. Trannum, Torgeir Bakke, Peter V. Hodson, and Tracy K. Collier, (15 September 2016) "Environmental effects of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill: A review". Marine Pollution Bulletin 110 (1): 28–51. DOI:10.1016/j.marpolbul.2016.06.027.
- The Deepwater Horizon oil spill was the largest, longest-lasting, and deepest oil accident to date in US waters. As oil and natural gas jetted from release points at 1,500-m depth in the northern Gulf of Mexico, entrainment of the surrounding ocean water into a buoyant plume, rich in soluble hydrocarbons and dispersed microdroplets of oil, created a deep (1,000-m) intrusion layer. Larger droplets of liquid oil rose to the surface, forming a slick of mostly insoluble, hydrocarbon-type compounds. A variety of physical, chemical, and biological mechanisms helped to transform, remove, and redisperse the oil and gas that was released. Biodegradation removed up to 60% of the oil in the intrusion layer but was less efficient in the surface slick, due to nutrient limitation. Photochemical processes altered up to 50% (by mass) of the floating oil. The surface oil expression changed daily due to wind and currents, whereas the intrusion layer flowed southwestward. A portion of the weathered surface oil stranded along shorelines. Oil from both surface and intrusion layers were deposited onto the seafloor via sinking marine oil snow. The biodegradation rates of stranded or sedimented oil were low, with resuspension and redistribution transiently increasing biodegradation. The subsequent research efforts increased our understanding of the fate of spilled oil immensely, with novel insights focusing on the importance of photooxidation, the microbial communities driving biodegradation, and the formation of marine oil snow that transports oil to the seafloor.
- Uta Passow and Edward B. Overton, (2021) . "The Complexity of Spills: The Fate of the Deepwater Horizon Oil". Annual Review of Marine Science 13: 109–136. DOI:10.1146/annurev-marine-032320-095153. (first published as a Review in Advance on September 21, 2020)
