The Gulf of Mexico has taken its share of pollution over the years, and perhaps the worst of it is the most recent oil leak...spill...I don't know what to call it... Gusher!
Now that it is stopped we need to take a deep breath and figure out what needs to be done in the future to prevent this type of catastrophe. And we need to look well past the leak...we need to look at drilling design requirements, containment measures, recovery tools, new methods for less environmentally destructive disbursement... hell, we need to look at everything involved with recovering from this type of disaster because it has happened before (bet you didn't know that) and it will undoubtedly happen again.
The BP Gulf Oil Spill, as it turns out was so large it was visible from Space as it was a spill the size of Rhode Island, photographed by NASA satellites...it really is an issue we will have to address for decades to come.
So...haven't we learned from the past?
1911: Lakeview Gusher
Drilling at Lakeview Number One well was started by the Lakeview Oil Company on January 1, 1909. As the drilling continued and only natural gas was found, the Lakeview company partnered with Union Oil Company which wanted to build storage tanks on Lakeview property.[2]
While modern well-drilling techniques have advanced safety features such as blowout preventers that reduce the chances of a gusher, early twentieth-century drilling technology could not contain the high pressures encountered at Lakeview. The gusher began on March 14, 1910, as the drill bit reached 2,440 ft (740 m).[3]
The well casing is a steel pipe-liner that contains oil as it is pumped from the depths. During drilling, the casing also guides the drill bit and drive shaft in a roughly straight line. Pressure blew at least part of the casing out, along with an estimated 9 million barrels (1.4×106 m3) of oil, before the gusher was brought under control 18 months later in September 1911.[4]
1979: Ixtoc I was an exploratory oil well being drilled by the semi-submersible drilling rig Sedco 135-F in the Bay of Campeche of the Gulf of Mexico, about 100 km (62 mi) northwest of Ciudad del Carmen, Campeche in waters 50 m (160 ft) deep.[2] On 3 June 1979, the well suffered a blowout resulting in the fourth largest oil spill in history.Mexico's government-owned oil company Pemex (Petróleos Mexicanos) was drilling a 3 km (1.9 mi) deep oil well when the drilling rig Sedco 135F lost drilling mud circulation.
In modern rotary drilling, mud is circulated down the drill pipe and back up the well bore to the surface. The goal is to equalize the pressure through the shaft and to monitor the returning mud for gas. Without the counter-pressure provided by the circulating mud, the pressure in the formation allowed oil to fill the well column, blowing out the well. The oil caught fire, and Sedco 135F burned and collapsed into the sea.[2]
At the time of the accident Sedco 135F was drilling at a depth of about 3,600 metres (11,800 ft) below the seafloor.[5] The day before Ixtoc suffered the blowout and resulting fire that caused her to sink, the drill bit hit a region of soft strata. Subsequently, the circulation of drilling mud was lost resulting in a loss of hydrostatic pressure.[6] Rather than returning to the surface, the drilling mud was escaping into fractures that had formed in the rock at the bottom of the hole. Pemex officials decided to remove the bit, run the drill pipe back into the hole and pump materials down this open-ended drill pipe in an effort to seal off the fractures that were causing the loss of circulation.
These aren't the only spills...but they are examples of super spills...and they demonstrate that we should have learned, as with the Exxon Valdise and now the New Horizon... Oil may be valuable...but our earth is precious!
We need to solve these problems before they happen...not after they are in play.
First published in 1997, Living Downstream has influenced many and informed many more... it is a compelling story of a young woman who developes cancer ... finds her cure (perhaps) and then, as a scientist active in the process of correcting the issues involved, moves to bring the truth to her community and the nation...a novel, no...a real story of Sandra Steingraber, biologist, poet, and survivor.
