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| Refugio State Beach before the spill. |
Thursday, May 21, 2015
California's Coasts Contaminated With Black Liquid
Interestingly enough, in the midst of our drought, we also have an oil spill, which in all matters, is really a disaster. Plains All American Pipeline, which is responsible for the spill, estimates that up to 105,000 barrels were dumped into the Pacific Ocean, much of which ended up at Refugio State Beach. What's peculiar about this particular spill is that the oil originated inland and spread to the coast, thus requiring the assistance of both the Coast Guard and the Environmental Protection Agency. So far, 9 square miles of oil now cover the beach below with nearly 100 Emergency Operations Center workers assessing the situation and clawing oil off the sand.
Incidents like these remind us that the environment is fragile, especially to the consequences of human actions. In fact, there are concerns that the oil contamination will spread to the nearby El Capitan State Beach.
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Thanks for sharing, Kevin! Large oil spills, such as BP in 2010 get covered widely in the news and media, but smaller spills such as this one, the Refugio State Beach spill, don't reach the public eye as easily. I did some research on how oil spills are dealt with. One of the methods to eradicate oil is to use sorbets which are huge sponges that absorb the oil in water. Another method is called situ burning which involves setting the oil on fire. Situ burning however leads to air pollution from the burning oil.
ReplyDeleteP.S.: Cite your sources!!
Source:
Deletehttp://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/cleaning-oil-spill.htm
This is quite the unfortunate spill; due to it's occurrence, the coast of Santa Barbra has been considerable damaged, and it's most definitely going to cost a considerable sum of money. Thankfully though, looking for a light in this bad situation, the number of oil spills have been decreasing, both in massive spills and minor spills since the infamous exxon valdez spill. Though as you know it hasn't been completely brought down, with a given 199 reported accidents since 2006 in one of the two sources below. The only good news about this spill in terms of gallons distributed into the ocean, is that it is significantly smaller than other spills, and should be easier to clean up, so hopefully Santa Barbara will make a speedy recovery from this.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.usnews.com/news/science/news/articles/2015/05/21/california-oil-sop-up-starts-thousands-of-gallons-gathered?page=2
http://www.itopf.com/fileadmin/data/Documents/Company_Lit/Oil_Spill_Stats_2014FINALlowres.pdf