How long does it take to clean ocean oil spills?

Answer 1

Oil spills are highly damaging to the environment. For example the Exxon Valdez incident spilt million of litres onto the water's surface. It took months to take care of all the animals... seals, albatrosses, all that kinda stuff. The damage is never completely recoverable, so never really. But by the time the surface is dredged and wiped of rotting otters it takes 6 months hard core work. Obviously it also depends on the scale ( Exxon Valdez was a mega huge scale spillage)

:)

Answer 2

A lot of people are giving some very premature assessments of how long the oil spill will last. It is too early to tell, as oil is still coming out of the well. BP is drilling a relief well which is the conventional way to kill a wild well. They are also considering a top kill (re-entering the drill pipe where the oil is coming out and pump down cement or other material to kill the well.

At the same time, the clean up effort are underway, with the help of a huge number of volunteers. In the natural wildlife refuges, the contamination inspections and clean up efforts may linger on for some time (not sure for years, but definitely months) because you can't send in hoardes of people.

Answer 3

I am a beach oil spill worker recently hired. The well is still not capped as I answer this question. We were told some of us in our late 40's may retire doing this from the company that hired us. 10,15,20 years plus is what we are hearing.

Think about it. Exxon oil spill was 20 years ago and they are still cleaning up after that. And it was far much less oil than this by far. This one is still spewing from the well in the gulf and we are looking at August before it MAY be capped finally. But with the millions and millions of gallons of oil that is out there and still pouring out daily. Anyone saying this year it should be done, is really fooling themselves. It is gonna be a long task. And what do you think "when" a bad storm or hurricane hits, where do you think that rough surf is gonna push the oil and throw the oil, further inland of course . Condos , Swimming Pools on condos. Who knows. It will not be pretty that is a fact.