ENVIRONMENTAL DISASTERS By Shirley Duke www rourkepublishing com ROURKE PUBLISHING www rourkepublishing com
CHAPTER ONE Oil Spill In 2010 an explosion shattered a quiet April evening in the Gulf of Mexico Flames roared into the air on the Deepwater Horizon offshore oil platform Startled workers scrambled to escape Most of them reached safety Millions of gallons of light crude oil gushed from the site 4 On April 22 2010 the Deepwater Horizon sank Oil poured into Gulf waters
Drilling for oil over water required floating platforms that resembled barges Early offshore drilling stayed on the ocean floor in shallower water Later platforms with supports reaching to the ocean floor held the equipment and workers Then new technology made oil drilling in the deep ocean profitable Oil rigs supported the giant platforms and the production crews necessary for deep water drilling Companies rushed to lease Gulf coast sites The huge Deepwater Horizon was designed to drill in 7,000 feet 2 1 kilometers of water A blowout preventer a valve that closes off and covers the bore hole if it blows out hadn’t stopped the explosion The well’s depth made stopping the oil flow more difficult British Petroleum BP worked to plug the leak Workers drilled relief wells and capped the leak But for eighty-six days the well poured over 185 million gallons 700 million liters of oil into the Gulf This spill dwarfed the 11 million gallon 41 million liters spill of the Exxon Valdez tanker in 1989 along the Alaskan coast Mississippi Louisiana Gulf of Mexico Alabama Georgia Florida oil spill 5
