Steve Akana / Roundup
The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico continues to grow as British Petroleum still scrambles to fix its leaking well.
Thus far as much as 29 million gallons of oil has spilled into the gulf in what has been the largest oil spill in United States history.
Albeit, BP is doing all that it can to clean up the oil that has inundated that gulf coast I do not think it’s enough.
It’s hard to rely on a company whose main objective is profitability to clean up this environmental mess.
After all witnesses on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig that exploded April 20 have said that there was a problem with the blowout preventer and that BP knew about it prior to the disaster.
The blowout preventer was considered the fail safe that would prevent a disaster such as this.
The idea that BP knew about the faulty piece of equipment and still decided to continue drilling should be an indication of their number one priority, making a profit.
It makes me wonder how much faith we can put into these oil companies to carry out their operations in such a way that does not have such dire consequences.
One thing that I find ironic is BP’s only guaranteed method of fixing the leak is to drill a relief well.
I understand the basic principle of drilling a relief well, but come on, how can they be so sure that something will not go wrong with that one, especially since they are pressed for time.
This oil spill has already devastated fragile ecosystems and has had a detrimental impact on the economy in that region.
The Federal government should have stepped in much sooner to oversee the clean up operations and offer assistance to those affected by the spill.
As Californians, who is to say that a disaster such as this will not happen off our coast from one of the many offshore oil drilling rigs.
I do not think we can rely on big oil companies to continue drilling without reassessing their fail safes and without some sort of government oversight.
Someone must step up to the plate and look at what’s best for the environment and not what is best for their wallet.