Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill In Today's History, April 20, 2010

Deepwater Horizon (Sumber: Commons Wikimedia)

JAKARTA - On April 20, 2010, an explosion occurred at the Deepwater Horizon rig located in the Gulf of Mexico, approximately 66 kilometers off the coast of Louisiana. The explosion gave rise to the worst oil spill in the ocean --the Gulf of Mexico - to be exact - in history. This event is known as the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

To quote Britannica, the Deepwater Horizon rig is owned and operated by the offshore oil drilling company, Transocean. The rig was leased by an oil company, British Petroleum (BP). The oil well is located on the 1,522 meter sea floor and extends about 5,486 meters into the rock.

On the evening of April 20, a wave of natural gas exploded through a new concrete core installed by the contractor, Halliburton, to seal off a well that would later be used. According to documents released by Wikileaks, a similar incident occurred on a BP-owned rig in the Caspian Sea in September 2008.

Both cases have the same cause, namely the concrete core is too weak to withstand the pressure because it has a mixture that uses nitrogen gas to speed up drying. After the gas escapes through the cracks in the concrete, natural gas rises to the Deepwater Horizon rig and explodes.

Deepwater Horizon Explosion (Source: Commons Wikimedia)

The explosion killed eleven workers and injured 17 others. The rig capsized and sank on the morning of April 22, breaking the riser, expelling the mud previously injected to counter the upward pressure of oil and natural gas.

Without opposing forces, oil began to flow into the bay. The volume of oil coming out of the damaged wells was initially estimated by BP to be around 1,000 barrels per day. But US government officials said oil volumes were at their peak of more than 60,000 barrels per day.

Impact

Over the course of three months, the unclosed well produced 300 Olympic-sized oil pools into the Gulf of Mexico. This makes it the largest oil spill in history. The leak pumped out 12 times more oil than the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989.

As a result of the oil spill, the economic prospects around the Gulf of Mexico are very bad. The oil spill affects many industries on which local residents rely. More than a third of federal waters in the bay are closed for fishing because of fears of contamination.

The moratorium on offshore drilling was imposed by US President Barack Obama. This resulted in around 8,000-12,000 temporary unemployed. People who depend on tourism continue to struggle to increase income.

Following Obama's demands, BP then issued a compensation fund of US $ 20 billion for those affected by the oil spill. A year later nearly a third of the funds have been paid.

However, the lack of oversight allows government entities to make claims that are inflated wildly unrelated to the effects of the oil spill. In 2013, these funds were mostly exhausted.

Oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico (Source: Commons Wikimedia)

As the oil spreads, parts of the bay actually began to reopen for fishing. As of October 2010, most of the oil-covered areas were deemed safe. State governments have struggled to get tourists to visit beaches that have not been dirty or have recently been cleaned with advertising campaigns, often using funds from BP.

However, oil continues to flow ashore in many areas and much of it cannot be removed, either for logistical reasons or because clearing it would cause even more damage to the ecosystem. The drilling moratorium, originally planned to end in November 2010, was lifted in mid-October. However, new drilling permits were not issued until February 2011.

This oil leak also causes thousands of birds, mammals and turtles to be covered with oil. There has been speculation that the spike in cetacean stranding and deaths recorded by NOAA as of February 2010 has been exacerbated by the spill.

A December 2013 study of dolphins living in Barataria Bay, Louisiana, found that roughly half of the dolphins were very sick. Many suffer from lung and adrenal disorders that are known to be associated with oil exposure.

In addition, around 1,400 whales and dolphins were found stranded at the end of 2015, a figure that represents only a fraction of the animals affected. Although the number of dead animals began to decrease, the dolphins' fertility decreased substantially. It is thought that stranding is the largest death event to have occurred in the Gulf of Mexico.

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