Gulf Oil Spill
Keith Niesen
ENV/100
July 22, 2013
Nash Saleh

Gulf Oil Spill
In 2010 America had a major disasters on its hands the BP oil spill, not only did some people die from this spill, but the oil spill contaminated the Gulf of Mexico. This was a representation of bad technology it also revealed many environmental risks that many people rather ignore. The oil spill also sparked huge outrage as to why this happened and what we must do to prevent another disaster like this. How can we change the way we drill oil and not affect our precious ecosystems and ruin wildlife or are ocean. What is some of the new technology we are using to help with preventing another oil spill from happening?
After the oil rig explosion many pollutants were introduced into the air and water. Many of these pollutants were smoke and or hydrocarbon fumes. The water pollutants was the oil and natural gas that was constantly gushing out of the well. The primary pollutants are the smoke and hydrocarbon because they are pollutants that are directly being emitted into the air from a source. There are many concerns with air pollution and scientist have found many chemicals such as alkyl nitrates, methane, hexane and butane compounds the can irritate and burn skin and the eyes and can cause dizziness as well. With all of these samples that have been collected they have not shown levels above government safety regulations (Roosevelt, 2013).
Oil pollution we know is dangerous for the environment our ocean is very important for life wildlife and humans as well. 4.9 million barrels of oil was spilled into the Gulf of Mexico and this was damaging for our ecosystems that were living there, under some new research the dispersant that was used to clean up the spill was much worse and added to the problems and toxicity of the spill. Studies have shown that adding this type of cleaning solution to the spill increased toxicity 52 times, this killed off more microbes and bacteria and larger animals more than the actual oil spill (Gulf Of Mexico Clean-Up Makes 2010 Spill 52-Times More Toxic, 2013).
The BP oil spill was a huge disaster not only for us but our environment a whole ecosystem was affected greatly and still we do not know to what extent how much damage was done. It is estimated that thirty percent of the oil fell to the sea floor affecting corral and other organisms. According to Mac (2013), “more than 6,000 birds, 600 sea turtles, and 100 mammals had died within the spill area—probably a substantial undercount. That same day, a research vessel seven miles from the spill site discovered dozens of communities of dead and dying coral”. This is just a tip of the iceberg, the fishing and shrimping and oyster industries have been greatly affected in Louisiana seafood is a 2.4 billion dollar industries and many people will be affected as well as the ecosystems they are fishing. The gulf has many wetlands and this can affect vegetation and birds as well and can destroy many species. These are just some of the effects this spill has brought to a vast ecosystem we do not fully know the extent the damage has done until many years down the road.
According to Ludtke (2013) “Bioremediation is defined by the Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA"), as the use of living microbes