Environmental and Health Impacts: BP Oil Spill

Impact:

Antonia Juhasz had the opportunity to dive down into the Gulf years after the BP oil spill as she addresses in her article “Thirty Million Gallons Under the Sea.” The BP oils spill released approximately 134 million gallons of oil into the sea. Seventeen percent of the U.S. oil comes from the Gulf, with 80% of it coming from over depths of 1,000 feet. The high concentrations of methane in the sea make it dangerous for drilling as natural gas can get into the oil pipes and cause blowouts which is what caused for the massive spill. A spill of this caliber had never happened before so BP applied methods to stop it that work on smaller spills but not this one. It took them 87 days to seal the well with a temporary cap. But, 100+ millions of gallons of oil and half a million tons of natural gas had already poured out into the ocean. They finally got the well sealed by drilling another one interesting the Macondo and pumping in mud and cement to fill it. 

            The environmental impacts are caused from this spill are tremendous. Before the Macondo burst, 60% of the oysters that were harvested in the U.S. came from the Gulf but that is currently down to 40%. A year after the spill, more than 100,000 animals living in the Gulf were recorded as being sickened or killed. There were also numerous organisms that washed onshore and ones that died at sea and were never to be seen. There are also many threated and endangered species that reside in the Gulf, such as, sea turtles, manatees, and bald eagles. In 1977, researchers had observed that there was a broad diversity of live with abundant populations thriving at the bottom of the sea where they once thought was life barren. After the spill, there was nothing left on the sea floor that was living.

            As Juhasz goes on her dive she and her partner accompanying her notice that the coral was all dead or damaged. They saw some sea life but if it was before the spill they would of seen an abundance of the species they did see along with many more species that were gone from the scene. They collected samples on the dive and as they researched them in a lab it was found that the layer of oil residue from four years earlier was still present, as much as two inches thick coating almost 3,000 square miles of the ocean floor. There are microbes that have eaten at this oil in the first few months leaving behind the most toxic components of it. This is also dangerous because as the animals work their way up the food chain eating one another, the oil remnants contaminating those smaller fish make their way into the bigger fish that eat them such as tuna which is a popular fish caught for human consumption.  

            BP had agreed to a medical benefits settlement for those Gulf coast residents and cleanup workers for who prove that they have spill related respiratory, gastrointestinal, eye, skin, and neurophysiological conditions. The settlement provides 21 years of health monitoring and compensation up to $60,000, but only 1,304 out of 12,144 people were approved. Research has also shown that the oil contamination can lead to cancer, birth defects, and developmental and neurological disorders. In the fall of 2010, the Food and Drug Administration had declared that the Gulf seafood products were safe for human consumption, yet a study done a year later found that those who eat a lot of seafood could be at risk of developing cancer.

Boat floating through the aftermath of the spill.
By kris krüg - Flickr: Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill - Gulf of Mexico, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=30526179

Comparison: 

The BP oil spill can be compared to Charles Moore’s TED talk on the garbage patch. All materials on Earth are repeatedly used over and over again: they never go away.  Plastic bottles are made from oil and when they are "thrown away", they mainly wind up in the ocean as Moore shows us with pictures of bottles clumped up, floating in the waves. The oil from the BP spill has still not dissipated from the sea floor years after it occurred. Neither of these materials are broken down easily. When the plastic does end ip breaking down, it breaks into tiny pieces that are ingested by fish. This makes its way back to affecting humans when we eat fish that come from the ocean. The plastics in the ocean also affect the sea life. Organisms eat the caps or get caught in the plastic can holders floating around.

Plastic from the ocean winding up on the beach.
By U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Headquarters - Beach strewn with plastic debrisUploaded by Dolovis, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31314982

KSC:

            At Keene State College, there are a few ways that we can help with out consumption of oil and plastic. One that can make a big difference would be not driving as much. Living on campus gives us the option of walking or riding a bike to get us places nearby such as downtown. By choosing to walk instead we limit the consumption of oil through gas as well as cutting back on exposing chemicals to our ozone. Another factor is how much plastic we go through by purchasing water bottles at the store. These water bottles when we throw them away typically end up in the ocean. There are water fountains located in every building so by bringing our own refillable bottles we can limit our plastic use. Also, there are now specific compost versus trash bins in the dining commons. By composting the food that we do not eat we are benefiting the environment as well by converting it to a reusable form. 

Food composting for reuse as fertilizer.
CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=79710