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by Ashira Morris, ODP Staff Writer Clumps of sticky oil washed up on Israel’s Mediterranean beaches this weekend after a tanker was suspected of leaking. Officials are calling it one of the country’s “most serious ecological disasters” that has already seriously harmed marine life, including sea turtles and a fin whale that washed up dead […]
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by Natasha Lasky, ODP Staff Writer This past Tuesday, local residents observed a sheen on the water near the wharf off of Point Richmond in the San Francisco Bay–the result of a 600-gallon petroleum spill from Chevron’s Richmond oil refinery. The refinery, which processes 245,271 barrels of oil per day, was able to contain the […]
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Last week the federal government approved protections for 500 square miles of deep-sea coral habitats in the Gulf of Mexico, NOLA.com reported. The rules, approved by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), prohibit fishing with bottom tending nets and other fishing tools that rip apart fragile corals.
Why This Matters: Deep-sea corals live at depths up to 10,000 feet and protect a diverse array of marine life including shrimp, crab, and other fish caught and sold for consumption around the world.
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On Saturday, the Japanese oil tanker Wakashio that ran aground three weeks ago off the coast of the island of Mauritius broke in half. The Panama-flagged vessel was traveling from China to Brazil with no cargo, but it was carrying more than 4,000 tons of heavy fuel oil and diesel, of which between 800 and 1,200 tons have already spilled.
Why This Matters: It is unbelievably challenging to clean up an oil spill of this magnitude — just ask anyone who stood on the beaches in Louisiana mopping up oil after the Deepwater Horizon spill.
Continue Reading 611 wordsLast month, a Japanese-owned ship ran aground off the coast of Mauritius, causing over 1,000 tons of oil to leak into the sea. Last week, Mauritius residents “stuffed fabric sacks with sugar cane leaves” in order to create “makeshift oil spill barriers,” as CBS News reported earlier this week.
Why This Matters: If the ship breaks in half, an already horrifying situation will be made worse, seeing as there are still 2,500 tons of oil currently contained in the ship.
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Late on April 20, 2010, the deepest oil well in history at that time (operating at a vertical depth of 35,050 feet) exploded killing 11 people and it began spewing oil. An estimated 210 million gallons flowed into the ocean over the course of 87 days.
Why This Matters: It is a faded memory, but for those who lost everything in the spill, it is hauntingly familiar to the current COVID crisis.
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