Joel Hendon

Environmental Hazards On the Bottom of the Gulf of Mexico


Posted: Thursday, August 26, 2010

by Joel Hendon
http://hebronics.org/index.html

Now that it seems the explosion and the resulting gigantic oil spill from the Deepwater Horizon oil well of British Petroleum Corporation (BP) are under control, one would think that perhaps we could relax with the hopes that nothing like that would happen again. But due to the publicity and numerous investigations which have been conducted, lo, another worry raises it's head.

Not many people have been aware of the tremendous amount of drilling and piping billions of barrels of crude, plus billions of cubic feet of natural gas from beneath the gulf floor over the past fifty years. Beside some 10,500 wells operating in the gulf, there are more than 27,000 abandoned wells according to an article in the CBS News, approximately 600 of which belongs to BP.

There are two sets of regulations for the sealing of abandoned wells. One is a temporary fix which is required if the well is planned to be reopened. To leave one in this condition, the company must supply their plans to reopen the well within a year or to permanently re-plug it.

There are presently about 3,500 wells which have been "temporarily abandoned" and about three-fourths of those have been abandoned for more than one year with some for more than fifty years. In fact, it is reported that more than 1,000 have been left more than a decade. An AP investigator called the gulf floor, "...an environmental minefield".

No one is sure how many, if any, of these wells are leaking crude into the gulf waters. The numbers are so staggering that to reseal all which are in the "temporary" category would now be cost prohibitive without sending petroleum products prices through the ceiling. For the states and/or federal governments to undertake it, would place tremendous strains on their budgets.

Not only is there a possibility that some wells will begin leaking, some have well pipes and other structures which come to within 12 feet of the gulf surface. In late July, a tug boat pushing a barge struck one oil well some 65 miles south of New Orleans, sending a geyser-like spout of gas and oil 100 feet high. Fortunately it was in only about 20 feet of water and a well-control company was able to reseal the well in a reasonable time.

Even small leaks and small accidents such as the tugboat above, all add to the hazards towards the gulf's ecosystem. More strenuous regulations need to be implemented, or at least our present ones need to be strictly enforced. BP was in the process of temporarily sealing off the Deepwater Horizon well when the explosion and fire occurred. Some rule or act had to have been bypassed or poorly followed to have caused the accident. With all the 27,000 abandoned wells, and never such a catastrophe before, there had to be a reason.
Author Biography: Joel Hendon was born near Gadsden Alabama. He attended public schools in Cherokee County, Alabama and after serving a tour of duty in the U.S. Army during the Korean War, attended Jacksonville State University, majoring in Business Administration. He became a Christian in 1948, and although he followed secular work as a career and retired from Allied Signal Aerospace, he is an avid student of the Holy Bible and related works as well as biblical history. He has an extensive website of conservative religious and political articles.http://hebronics.org/index.html

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