Environmental Impacts- BP Oil Spill
Application Assignment #1 2010 BP Oil Spill Deepwater Horizon Oil Rig Explosion in 2010, photo by US Coast Guard For my assignment I chose to read about the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf Coast. The article, “ Thirty Million Gallons Under the Sea: Following the trail of BP’s oil in the Gulf of Mexico ” by Antonia Juhasz, discussed the long term environmental impacts it has left. The Gulf of Mexico is home to a large amount of oil and natural gas lease blocks. According to the article by Juhasz, it is estimated that over 17 percent of oil in the US comes from the Gulf and of that, a whopping 80 percent comes from depths of 1,000 feet or more below the ocean’s surface. This drilling into the ocean’s floor is what led to the BP oil spill. BP had leased a large amount of land in the Gulf Coast and was using it to drill wells for oil. There was an extensive amount of steel piping under the ocean floor that was being used to transport the oil. In April of 2010 methane ga...