How could the gulf of Mexico spill be cleaned up faster?

Answer 1

This has been an area of controversy particularly during the months of May and June, when oil was appearing in the wetlands of Louisiana. In the media during this time, both BP and the US governmental agencies, including the US Coast Guard, the EPA and NOAA were blamed for not taking sufficient action to clean up the spill.

Almost immediately after the spill, BP stated their strategy as: (1) the oil had to be stopped from coming out of the well, (2) the oil on the surface would be reduced by use of skimmers, control burning and dispersants, and the movement restrained by use of booms (3) the washed up oil on beaches and marshes had to be removed.

The clean up action was massive, but there were notable successes and failures. If the remotely operated vehicles (ROV's) had worked to shut in the well at the blow out preventer, there might have been a 9 day oil spill instead of the 100 day oil spill. The large containment dome, also did not work as planned. This would have reduced the amount of oil spilled and made clean up operations easier.

Also, there was insufficient oil booms at the time of the spill. It was necessary to fabricate more oil booms. Today, these oil booms have stored and BP has stated that they can be used by any oil company that needs them in the future.

There were delays in the use of dispersants, due to environmental concerns. Whether this delayed clean up efforts is controversial, as dispersants have environmental risks.

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