Oil Rig Explosion Causes Tragedy

An explosion 50 miles off the coast of Louisiana in an oil rig exploded Tuesday night. It was unclear as to what caused the explosion but it happened extremely quickly. One of the officers said that they were unclear as to how much oil spilled into the ocean. On Thursday morning the rig collapsed into the Gulf of Mexico. It was estimated on Wednesday that about 13,000 gallons of crude oil was pouring out per hour. Although most of the damage to the environment was considered minimal, most of it was burned. The oil rig was called the Deepwater Horizon, used to open wells in the ocean floor. The rig consists of about 126 plus workers, 11 are missing and the coast guard has been searching but it is believed that didn’t survive the explosion. The Explosion caused 17 workers to be injured and 3 of them were critical. Nobody could do anything to help the environment because of the fire. It has been announced that the Obama Administration wants to open a vast amount of oil rigs off the coast along the Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico and Alaska. The proposal will please oil production companies but anger some residents and many environmental organizations. The plan by Obama will cover about 167 million acres of ocean. The reason Obama wants to drill in the ocean is to reduce amounts of imported oil. With Obama increasing all of this offshore drilling, many more accidents will occur. Our oceans will continue to receive damage if oil accidents keep occurring. The accident that happened a couple of days ago is a perfect example as to why we should not be drilling. This explosion is a warning to the government that if we keep drilling it will not only hurt our environment, but our country’s people.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/31/science/earth/31energy.html