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Essay On The Effects Of Oil Drilling In The United States

550 Words3 Pages

Effects of Oil Drilling on the US The United States’ hunger for oil has been the elephant in the room for many years now. Though the production of oil and other byproducts is a major economic backbone for the United States, it comes with many negative effects on the well-being of our country, and its people. This country needs to either find better ways of extracting crude oil, or halt the process entirely. When people think of the negative effects of oil drilling, the first thing that comes to mind is the damage to the environment through oil spills. This is undoubtedly a major issue affecting the United States land, and its wildlife. When an oil spill occurs, it basically coats everything it touches, thus initiating a long, expensive process of ridding our ecosystem of all toxins resulting from the spill. For example, the BP oil spill that occurred in 2010 occurred during mating and nesting season for many bird species. The long-term effects of this spill won’t be known for many years to come, but we do know that it wiped out a large majority of the birds and marine animals in the area. This is but one of the possible negative effects of oil drilling. …show more content…

As odd as it sounds, the massive amount of heavy machinery and vehicle traffic at oil drilling sites releases an incredible amount of “sound pollution”. This affects wildlife because birds and other animals respond to noise disturbances with short term avoidance behavior. Studies have shown that these behaviors eventually become habitual, making it difficult for animals to properly transverse the country to get to warmer climates. This eventually results in widespread death of animals due to having trouble getting south, eventually succumbing to brutal winter or lack of

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