Ongoing Investigation of Oil Spill, Now Centering On Communication
Posted: Tuesday, August 24, 2010
by Joel Hendon
http://hebronics.org/index.html
The unusual accident that occurred with the Deepwater Horizon semi-submersible floating drilling unit has been under intense investigation from day one, which was April 20, 2010. The explosion which cracked the well case and the resulting fire, caused the death of 11 of the workers and injured 17 others. The remaining 98 people did not suffer any major injury.
The accident has been a puzzle as to why and how it happened, and especially so since there are numerous safety features and regulations of these rigs which have caused successful drilling and pumping of oil for years and our photo above shows the location of 3,858 similar type oil platforms in 2006 in the gulf alone. True, there are frequent accidents and even deaths from them which are simply inherent to the industry. It is a dangerous job and those employed in this trade are aware of it.
(Photo from Wikipedia with permission)
One source states there has been an average of two deaths per week in the gulf oil industry area alone since 1995. The Pure Oil Company built a platform and drilled a well a mile of the Louisiana coast in 14 feet of water in 1937, but the first three real oil rigs were built in the Gulf of Mexico in 1959. The employment of oil workers in the gulf area now is enormous. One source estimated that simply the ban on drilling would result in some 45,000 direct and indirect lay offs. Due to the huge number of employees, two deaths per week is not enough to consider the work as extremely dangerous. In that amount of population, you will find equal or more, incidents of accidental deaths per week.
The present efforts of the Feds involved in the investigation is concentrated on communication or the lack of it. They are presently following several leads towards where the rules and instructions may not have been adequately related to others, even though the safety measures were available. Since the true cause is yet to be determined, let us hope there will be no over-reaction to something simply to pin down a scapegoat.
The answers are far too valuable to be passed over lightly.
A very informative article with very detailed and clear photographs is available, Click Here
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