[192] The oil contained approximately 40% methane by weight, compared to about 5% found in typical oil deposits. We will now begin implementing restoration as laid out in the Trustees final comprehensive restoration plan. [319] Still another was for not plugging the pipe with cement. [38][39] Ninety-four crew members were rescued by lifeboat or helicopter, 17 of whom were treated for injuries. The loss of life and the subsequent pollution of the Gulf of Mexico were the result of poor risk management, lastminute changes to plans, failure to observe and respond to critical indicators, inadequate well control response, and insufficient emergency bridge response training by companies and individuals responsible for drilling at the Macondo well and for the operation of the drilling platform. [209] Some estimates are that only 2% of the carcasses of killed mammals have been recovered. Gerald Baron for Crisisblogger, 8 June 2012. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Deepwater Horizon Trustee Council, a joint federal, state and tribal body which oversaw the overall Natural Resource Damage Assessment. The first one is increasing the surface area through emulsification. Microbial biosurfactants help in bioremediation of hydrophobic compounds by two main mechanisms. Many organizations, businesses, and private citizens filed lawsuits for economic, health, and other damages over the spill, and the final $20.8 billion settlement does not cover those. 8 September 2010, Volume and extent of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Timeline of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Efforts to stem the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Offshore oil spill prevention and response, Research and Development Institute of Ecology and the Sustainable Use of Natural Resources, Environmental impact of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Health consequences of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Economic and political consequences of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, 2010 United States deepwater drilling moratorium, Hornbeck Offshore Services LLC v. Salazar, United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, Reactions to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Organization for International Investment, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, United States House Committee on Energy and Commerce, God's Counting on Me, God's Counting on You, Offshore oil and gas in the Gulf of Mexico (United States), Deepwater Horizon Marine Casualty Investigation Report, On Scene Coordinator Report on Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, "BP / Gulf Oil Spill 68,000 Square Miles of Direct Impact", "Gulf Spill Is the Largest of Its Kind, Scientists Say", "BP leak the world's worst accidental oil spill", "Obama, in Gulf, pledges to push on stopping leak", "Memorial service honors 11 dead oil rig workers", "Blown-out BP well finally killed at bottom of Gulf", "Rocky Kistner: The Macondo Monkey on BP's Back", The Use of Surface and Subsea Dispersants During the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. [117][118][119], The Louisiana barrier island plan was developed to construct barrier islands to protect the coast of Louisiana. [298][299] On 26 July 2010, it was announced that CEO Tony Hayward was to resign and would be replaced by Bob Dudley, who is an American citizen and previously worked for Amoco. [42][43][44] The total estimated volume of leaked oil approximated 4.9Mbbl (210million USgal; 780,000m3) with plus or minus 10% uncertainty,[3] including oil that was collected,[45] making it the world's largest accidental spill. [54][55] In September a new wave of oil suddenly coated 16mi (26km) of Louisiana coastline and marshes west of the Mississippi River in Plaquemines Parish. [293] In June 2018, the executive order establishing the National Ocean Council was revoked by then-U.S. president Donald Trump in an effort to roll back bureaucracy and benefit "ocean industries [that] employ millions of Americans". Problems include the fact that microbes being introduced may require different conditions in order to grow, indigenous organisms out compete the new comers, and if growth is observed, it may not reach a high enough concentration to have an observable effect on the degradation of oil. BP said the report was inconclusive as to any causation associated with the spill. [166][167], Genetically modified Alcanivorax borkumensis was added to the waters to speed digestion. [241], Following the 26 May 2010 hospitalization of seven fishermen that were working in the cleanup crew, BP requested that the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health perform a Health Hazard Evaluation. [338] On 13 January 2013, Judge Barbier approved a medical-benefits portion of BP's proposed $7.8billion partial settlement. Selective pressure placed upon communities of organisms by the large increase of petroleum and other petroleum derivatives selects for the survival of organisms that can use petroleum and derivatives as energy, electron, and or carbon source [5]. Major oil spills in the GoM such as the Deepwater Horizon (DWH 2010) and the Ixtoc 1 (1979) resulted in extensive pollution of the pelagic, sea-floor, and coastal ecosystems. Traditional methods of oil spill cleaning include processes such as controlled burns, skimmers, vacuum pumping, low-pressure flush, manual mechanical cleanup, gelling agent, and many more [3], most of which merely remove the hydrocarbon from the affected water or environment and transfers them to another location. [181], On 15 April 2014, BP announced that cleanup along the coast was substantially complete, while the United States Coast Guard work continued using physical barriers such as floating booms, the cleanup workers' objective was to keep the oil from spreading any further. On August 3 BP conducted a static kill, a procedure in which drilling mud was pumped into the well through the BOP. Several species of microbes played a significant role in the cleanup of BP oil spill which otherwise would not had been possible. In the November 2012 resolution of the federal charges against it, BP agreed to plead guilty to 11 felony counts related to the deaths of the 11 workers and paid a $4billion fine. [190][191] PAHs are often linked to oil spills and include carcinogens and chemicals that pose various health risks to humans and marine life. [205][206][207][208] According to NOAA, a cetacean Unusual Mortality Event (UME) has been recognized since before the spill began, NOAA is investigating possible contributing factors to the ongoing UME from the Deepwater Horizon spill, with the possibility of eventual criminal charges being filed if the spill is shown to be connected. The settlement ended all civil and criminal penalty claims against the owners and operators of the rig BP, Anadarko, TransOcean and Halliburton under the Clean Water Act and the Oil Pollution Act. [136] The two formulations are neither the least toxic, nor the most effective, among EPA's approved dispersants, but BP said it chose to use Corexit because it was available the week of the rig explosion. A lock ( [199][200] Fish with oozing sores and lesions were first noted by fishermen in November 2010. [130] Environmental scientists expressed concerns that the dispersants add to the toxicity of a spill, increasing the threat to sea turtles and bluefin tuna. This coalition gained significant influence in the clean-up of the oil spill to try to gain some control over the situation. Claims by several research groups that subsurface plumes of dispersed hydrocarbons had been detected in May were initially dismissed by BP and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). [160], After the well was capped, the cleanup of shore became the main task of the response works. [20][21] Earlier in 2011, a White House commission likewise blamed BP and its partners for a series of cost cutting decisions and an inadequate safety system, but also concluded that the spill resulted from "systemic" root causes and "absent significant reform in both industry practices and government policies, might well recur". [364][365][366] Three more BP employees were charged in November 2012. [266][267], On 30 April 2010, President Barack Obama ordered the federal government to hold the issuing of new offshore drilling leases and authorized the investigation of 29oil rigs in the Gulf in an effort to determine the cause of the disaster. "[110], In January 2013, BP said that they were continuing to investigate possible sources of the oil sheen. [305][306] The USCG actively requested skimming boats and equipment from several countries.[307]. The goal of NRDA is to restore natural resources and compensate the public for lost recreational use. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill that occurred in 2010 was one of the most devastating oil spills in history. The main nutrients added to stimulate the growth of oil degrading microbes during the BP oil spills are nitrate and sulfate fertilizers [6]. Two weeks after the wellhead was capped on 15 July 2010, the surface oil appeared to have dissipated, while an unknown amount of subsurface oil remained. [29], The Deepwater Horizon was a 10-year-old[30] semi-submersible, mobile, floating, dynamically positioned drilling rig that could operate in waters up to 10,000ft (3,000m) deep. [303] The student body president expressed that students would be "very disappointed. [113] In 2012, Markus Huettel, a benthic ecologist at Florida State University, maintained that while much of BP's oil was degraded or evaporated, at least 60% remains unaccounted for. In their statement the DOJ said that some of BP's arguments were "plainly misleading" and that the court should ignore BP's [330] An auditor BDO Consulting found that 7,300 claimants were wrongly denied or underpaid. [282], Initially, BP downplayed the incident; its CEO Tony Hayward called the amount of oil and dispersant "relatively tiny" in comparison with the "very big ocean. Before the spill there was an average of 100 strandings per year; since the spill the number has jumped to roughly 500. Limiting nutrients are usually nitrogen, sulfur, phosphate, and sometimes iron because when a large amount of hydrocarbon is present, microbes will degrade it by anabolizing it into biomass [10]. The study was published in the April 2016 Diseases of Aquatic Organisms. [4][49] By early June 2010, oil had washed up on 125mi (201km) of Louisiana's coast and along the Mississippi, Florida, and Alabama coastlines. [357][358] According to The Wall Street Journal the U.S. government and Gulf Coast states had prepared an offer to BP for a $16billion settlement. The goal of the $500 million, 10-year research initiative, known as the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative offsite link (GoMRI), is to improve understanding of spill events and associated environmental stresses and public health implications. [11][12] The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is regarded as one of the largest environmental disasters in world history. An official website of the United States government. The Deepwater Horizon rig, owned and operated by offshore-oil-drilling company Transocean and leased by oil company BP, was situated in the Macondo oil prospect in the Mississippi Canyon, a valley in the continental shelf. [310] Also the United States House Committee on Energy and Commerce conducted a number of hearings, including hearings of Tony Hayward and heads of Anadarko and Mitsui's exploration unit. [156] In mid-June 2010, BP ordered 32machines that separate oil and water, with each machine capable of extracting up to 2,000bbl/d (320m3/d). These traditional techniques are limited in effectiveness and are expensive due to the large area affected by the BP oil spill. The plaintiffs included the U.S. Justice Department, Gulf states and private individuals. Fines would be apportioned commensurate with the degree of negligence of the parties, measured against the number of barrels of oil spilled. This incident was caused by an explosion of the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling unit located in the Gulf of Mexico capable of drilling down to 9144 meters deep under water [11] . "[318] BP released a statement in response to this, saying, that "even prior to the conclusion of the commission's investigation, BP instituted significant changes designed to further strengthen safety and risk management. [172], During the spill response operations, at the request of the Coast Guard, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) implemented a 900sqmi (2,300km2) temporary flight restriction zone over the operations area. 4) Is there a way to isolate the genes responsible for oil degrading microbes and introduce them to indigenous microbe populations that are incapable of oil degrading? May 4, 2010. Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Crude oil is shown in the Pacific Ocean offshore of Orange County, California, Oct. 3, 2021. BP and the Department of Justice agreed to a record-setting $4.525billion in fines and other payments. [326][327] Until this more than one million claims of 220,000 individual and business claimants were processed and more than $6.2billion was paid out from the fund. Who owned the rig responsible for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill? Oil spill transport and fate models are effective tools which allow a . [181] They also said that they wanted to provide access to the information while maintaining safety. This will optimize bioaugmentation as microbe being altered is indigenous to that particular environment. [23] Transocean pled guilty to a misdemeanor charge as part of its $1.4billion fine. [176], Local and federal authorities citing BP's authority denied access to members of the press attempting to document the spill from the air, from boats, and on the ground, blocking access to areas that were open to the public. Marine mammals such as dolphins, whales, and seals are also greatly affected by this horrific event. Bioaugmentation. [16][71], First, BP unsuccessfully attempted to close the blowout preventer valves on the wellhead with remotely operated underwater vehicles. Improving Your Non-Technical Skills as a Scientist. There was a report detailing the release of thousands of tons of hydrocarbon gases (HC) into the atmosphere. [153] It is calculated that about 5% of leaked oil was burned at the surface and 3% was skimmed. Various risks were identified and evaluated, in particular, that an increase in microbial activity might reduce subsea oxygen levels, threatening fish and other animals. In their report, they suggest the possibility that respiratory symptoms might have been caused by high levels of ozone or reactive aldehydes in the air, possibly produced from photochemical reactions in the oil. 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