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Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Essay

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The Deepwater Horizon was a drilling rig, which had been rented by British Petroleum (BP), in the Gulf of Mexico. The rig exploded on April 20th, 2010, pouring nearly 5 million barrels of oil into the sea over a three months’ span. This environmental crisis endangered marine wildlife, as well as workers that were injured during the explosion. Of 126 people, 28 workers in total were hurt, leaving 11 that were fatally injured, while the other 17 were severely injured (Crandall, Parnell, & Spillan, 2013).
Four weeks before the explosion, there was a discovery that a worker had bumped the control switch where it had moved a portion of the pipe through the blowout preventer (BOP), this caused the chunks of rubber that were found in the drilling …show more content…

However, the US federal judge stated that 4 million barrels seeped into the Gulf. BP had assured them that the oil had been accounted for. An oceanologist from the University of Georgia claimed that it is 1,200 square miles of sea floor that had been affected, BP had disputed that finding. Wildlife was affected as oil-soaked birds, fish, and turtles were washing up on shore. After the oil spill, it has been reported that Bottlenose dolphins were dying twice than the normal rate. In 2011, 335 died (Sherwel, 2015). BP has paid $5.5 billion in civil Clean Water Act penalties and nearly $15 billion more for environmental damage and assorted claims by local and state governments in along the Gulf. BP had initially set up a $20 billion trust to pay damage claims (Corbell, 2016).
After the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the Obama administration set new regulations on offshore oil and gas drilling on April 14th, 2016. The regulations require that a tougher inspection is required. The requirements have also been tougher on the design of undersea wells, the lining that coats the wells, and real-time monitoring of subsea drilling and spill containment (Davenport,

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