More Oil Spills Along American Coast

It was two years ago that tens of thousands of gallons of oil were spilled in San Francisco Bay when an oil tanker crashed into the Bay Bridge. It will never be allowed to happen again, leaders said. Well, now it’s happened again. South of the Bay Bridge, an oil tanker has spilled its contents in an slick that, just hours after it began, stretched for two miles.

At almost exactly the same time, another oil spill took place in Louisiana near the mouth of the Mississippi River. 12,000 gallons of oil spewed out of a hole punctured in a cargo ship’s hull.

Proponents of expanded offshore drilling have promised that the chances of an oil spill are very low. Recent events have shown that not to be the case, however. In the last three weeks alone, oil spills have hit South Carolina, Texas, Louisiana and California. Half of those spills were from oil tankers. The more tankers and drilling platforms we put out onto the waters, the higher the chances of more oil spills.

As another reminder of the high risks of offshore drilling for oil, the following news of the massive, two and a half month long oil spill in the Timor Sea comes from oil company PTTEP: “They had not actually stopped or killed the leak… and then unfortunately the fire broke out.”.

PTTEP, after a month including three complete failures and several additional delays, was about to complete the first step in finally stopping the leak, when a fire started on the oil drilling platform, and the repair crews had to be evacuated. Now, efforts to stop the oil spill have been put on hold, as PTTEP focuses on stopping the fire.