Practicum Post

There has recently been a lot of talk about the oil spill in the Gulf as the 1 year anniversary of this disaster occurred on April 20. Here are some quick facts that I had forgotten that was the direct result of the spill: a Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded over a BP well, it killed 11 workers, and spilled 170 million gallons of toxic crude oil and 200,000 metric tons of methane gas into the Gulf of Mexico! (I'm actually hesitant to admit that I never really knew of these severe numbers.)

Since the initial disaster and a whole year's worth of cleaning up and looking at how to fix the problem. However, just because time passes and does not mean that the problem has disappeared. The NRDC wrote up an analysis of the impacts one year later after the BP oil disaster. I downloaded the pdf of the writeup, which was pretty lengthy, but it has a lot of really good information that people should take the time to learn. Beyond this the last section of the article suggests ways to help improve this situation. They suggest that industries must act to improve safety, congress must act to pursue long-term restoration and industrial accountability; everyone must get together and work on better practices because this situation should never have happened. Everyone needs to collaborate and do their part to make the environment that affects many people a better place.

With this idea of collaboration and coming together, the NRDC has partnered with StoryCorps and Bridge the Gulf to "record, share, and preserve the stories and experiences of those living through the BP oil disaster. Click here to go to the site. There are some unbelievable stories. I highly encourage you to check it out! :)