Oil Spill

This weeks English class blog assignment is the oil spill.  I recalled that Sunday's Detroit Free Press had several articles which I hadn't had time to read since I was more concerned with sleeping and visiting my favorite sports massage therapist after the previous day's 26.2 mile adventure!!

I had lost track of exactly when this happened.  I found out in one of the articles that it was April 20th.  WOW, it's been well over a month.  One of the articles is titled, "We Can't Make This Well Stop".  The  latest thing they tried which was filling the flowing well with mud but that has failed.  They are next going to try capping the well.  That makes sense to me although I know nothing about oil wells.  The cap is already on the sea floor and ready to go.  The article states: "It isn't immediately clear how soon crews would begin the procedure." HUH??  I sure hope they are beginning.  I hope they didn't take the holiday weekend off.  It is a 4 day procedure.  The estimates of the amount of oil spilled is anywhere between 18 and 40 million gallons; I can't even imagine that amount. 

There was a picture of people cleaning a pelican who was covered in oil.  I am sure there will be a lot of wild life lost to this.     I have to wonder what they are going to do with the pelican; will he be put back into the same water?  It would just get covered in oil again. 

Today the Freep is reporting that they began the process to cap the well.  They first had to saw something  off and the saw got stuck.  There is a second saw going down there to finish the procedure.  After the cap is placed another well must be drilled to completely stop the flow and the article says that might take until August.  AUGUST???
My worst fear is that the oil will drift to the Florida Keys which is what I consider to be the most wonderful place on earth!  The oil is getting close to the panhandle of Florida and the white sand beaches.  I've been to a couple of places on the panhandle and there are some beautiful beaches. 

This has to stop soon. 
I guess we will find out tomorrow if the saw got freed and the cap put in place.  We can only hope.