And you thought the Exxon Valdez was bad...

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I have been watching news about the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster closely with shock and dismay at the failed attempts to stop tons of oil from completely devastating the gulf coast. I love nice beaches, I love great seafood, and I love natural wildlife, all of which this area may never experience for decades because of the disaster that occurred from an oil rig failure, from nearly a month ago, that occurred on April 20th, 2010. This drilling site has been bleeding oil into the ocean at an alarming rate for nearly a month now and it constitutes the worst oil related catastrophe in US history, and quite possibly worldwide, much more significant than the Exxon Valdez.

What worries me the most is the solution ideas I've been hearing from the crew at BP. I have heard everything from using a giant box to cover the well site [which already failed] to shooting trash into the opening of the pressurized leak, to using chemicals to harden the escaping oil and jam the oil flow. I can't believe that BP hadn't thought of the potential of an oil spill of this nature prior to this, this is their bread and butter. A failure of this kind surely threatens their future, with all of the employees, lobbyists, technicians, and analysts that exist solely for the oil industry, why wasn't a potential catastrophe prepared for in advance? The simple answer lies in the story of "The Titanic".

Man has a way of forgetting the past, great hubris, and thinking of the future in a rosy outlook. This is great for motivation, but often falls flat when disaster occurs. I know that somewhere in this company [BP] are a bunch of people who said "I told them so!" when this disaster broke out, but their rank was not high enough on the "corporate food chain" to be heard. Sometimes we, as well as companies, think that money will get us out of trouble as well, which in this case, a better idea than paying billions to stop the leak would have been to stuff all that money down the oil well early on. That may have prevented this massive disaster earlier, saving lives, business for fishermen and tourism, and saving wild life residing in the gulf. This is a horrible, horrible affliction, but I guarantee that companies will not learn from it, because its the same thing that was said when the Exxon Valdez ship broke open and lost its oil. Its up to each and every one of us to realize the work we do is vital and crucial, and we all must make backup plans based on being responsible for our quality of work when it impacts the livelihood of others, including and especially on our already tormented ecosystem and the animals that inhabit it.

Where is the historical knowledge of oil spill remediation? Where are the scholars? They're certainly not working at BP if it takes nearly a month to cap an oil leak. And especially with the hair-brained solutions that have been proposed by BP so far in capping the leak.

A glimmer of hope is found in this video:

-where commonly found hay is used to aid in oil spill cleanup. You can't be more "green" in solving this issue, I am especially fond of the idea of using the hay to run power plants [as a disposal suggestion]. For now, that's the best we can do, and I bet you this invention wasn't funded by BP. Its amazing how well hay works in this case in cleanup of open water, and amazing how well it will work considering the sea life that coexist while it is being used. I love when people create real ideas that solve problems, and that's what this site is about.... Send us your ideas and lets make positive world change happen!

For Additional Reading On Some Major Historical Oil Spills:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/articl ... r_oil_spil...