Oil Spill Devastates Gulf Coast

(Credit: U.S. Coast Guard)

This devastating oil spill off are Gulf Coast is a major event in the oil industry’s history. The loss of life that is going to be contributed to this massive oil spill is beyond comprehension. Many local fisheries have already been banned or shut down, because the oil has yet to be contained properly and it is threatening to pollute all aspects of local wildlife including what eat.

An unknown amount of oil is still seeping into the ocean from where the oil rig once stood. With little or no plans to stop it. We have to ask ourselves, why drill for oil, when there is no plan in place to stop a catastrophic accident like this from happening over and over again.

(Credit: U.S. Coast Guard)

The oil spill grows larger, being fed by an underwater leak caused by the oil rig, rupturing BP’s Plc well. This oil is being spread throughout the Gulf Coast by means of underwater currents and is threatening every state in the Gulf Coast. Besides shutting down fisheries, this oil leak is threatening further oil refining and production and also shipping goods up and down the Gulf Coast.

President Obama has weighed in on the situation and has placed blame solely on BP, for the cost of the cleanup that may take several years. President Obama has also made it clear that the entire federal government will be helping in the cleanup of the environmental impact caused by the oil rig explosion.

(Credit: U.S. Coast Guard)

So where does this leave all the people affected by this disaster? From the environmental impact, to the loss of jobs, what price will this disaster cost. Will it cause people to lose their jobs, to lose their livelihoods, all because there was no plan to stop something like this from happening again.

As the oil spill enters our shorelines and kills all the life trapped in its path, what recourse do we have? If all blame and responsibility are placed on BP, what are they going to do? There is no easy solution, but there would be little to no problem, if there was a strict plan set in place to contain such an oil spill caused by drilling failure. But by not having an ample plan ahead of time, it makes the solution almost impossible and the consequences reprehensible.

(Credit: NASA)

With the devastation of Katrina still lingering, New Orleans now faces another man made disaster, as the oil slick slowly moves towards their coastline. The photo above provided by NASA, shows just how close the oil slick is to New Orleans. It is about 700,000 gallons of oil that is growing by the day and it is less than 40 miles away from causing one of the worst disasters in the U.S. history, since the 1989 Exxon tanker spill in Alaska.

That spilled more than 11,000,000 gallons of oil, in the Prince William sound, devastating over 700 miles of pristine shorelines and causing native wild life to suffer unjustly. As the traders worry, about if they can produce more oil and natural gas in the region, are native wild life will suffer. They see no profit in helping fix the problem or saving animals, they only see that it might affect there profits.

What we could not learn from the past is now haunting us today. Oil is the problem and the only solution is either not using oil anymore, or set a plan in motion that will limit off shore drilling in places that will affect, people and wildlife so profoundly. If we cannot plan for such a disaster, but we can use are intelligence to drill hundreds of feet below the ocean, then we should not be drilling there in the first place.