It’s been fifteen years since the Deepwater Horizon oil rig suffered a blowout and spilled five million barrels of crude oil into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. The 87 days that followed the explosion on April 20, 2010 — forty miles off the coast of Louisiana — left residents gripped in a white-knuckle, teeth-grinding frenzy, as the slick continued to grow and approach the coast like some kind of atavistic, sci-fi horror show.
By the time The Great Blob was finally contained, it had affected 70,000 square miles of the Gulf, roughly the size of Oklahoma. It was the worst industrial disaster in U.S. history by volume. To this day, the extent of ecological damage is unknown.
At the time it went down, the explosion and its ensuing spill wasn’t nearly as surprising as BP’s seeming inability to stop it. Three months is a long time to watch Anderson Cooper report on scenes of sheer devastation coming out of your own backyard. Less than two months after the explosion, BP, who had leased the rig from drilling contractor Transocean, had even stooped to soliciting suggestions on its website for ways to stop the flow.
For anyone who loved the Gulf and called it home, or had even enjoyed a Bushwhacker at the Flora-Bama during a Spring Break in the long ago, the spill was a major wake-up call. There was a period in those three months where Life As We Knew It on the Gulf Coast might conceivably be over.
Thankfully, that didn’t happen. Fifteen years later, we are more vigilant about threats to our waters, and, in many ways, ecological efforts are more robust. The 2012 RESTORE Act helped lead remediation efforts, and NOAA has been stalwart in their efforts at restoration. Safety standards have reportedly improved at rigs since the Deepwater Horizon. But are we truly protected from another major spill — who knows?
Ninety-seven percent of offshore oil and gas drilling in the U.S. happens in the Gulf, and, currently, only a fifth of the Gulf’s 2,200 active leases are in operation, due to a large production supply and the high costs of drilling, according to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, a federal agency that manages offshore drilling.
It’s clear that drilling in the Gulf will be around for some time. Let’s hope the regulatory framework remains intact as well. We have too much to lose.
— from CURRENTS (SPRING 2005)
Caine O'Rear 