BP_OIl_Spill_Fill_IN

							Name: _____________________
Environmental Science
Gulf Oil Spill – Fill-In: Adapted from the NYTimes.com

An explosion on April 20 aboard the Deepwater Horizon, a drilling rig
working on a well for the oil company BP one mile below the surface of
the Gulf of Mexico, has led to the largest oil spill in the history of the
_________. After a series of failed efforts to plug the leak, government
and company officials say _________ will likely continue flowing until
a relief well cuts off the gusher, an event expected sometime in
_________.
In late May, the government estimated that between _________ and
_________ barrels a day of oil are escaping, meaning that in the month
after the blast, more than twice as much oil had been released as flowed
from the wreck of the _________, which spilled about 250,000 barrels
of oil into Prince Williams Bay in Alaska in _________. A containment
cap put in place in early June began collecting _________ barrels of oil
a day, even though much of the oil continued to flow through valves on
the cap that had not been closed, raising new questions over just how the
big the spill is.
The Coast Guard commander, Adm. Thad W. Allen, said on June 7 that
it could take _________ to deal with the effects of the spill, in part
because it had broken into hundreds of thousands of patches, spread
from _________ to _________.
By late May, Louisiana officials reported that up to 100 miles of
coastline had been “oiled,” and the spill had begun seeping into
environmentally fragile _________. In early June, oil reached the
_________ of Mississippi and Alabama and threatened Florida.
On June 1, the Justice Department announced that it would begin a
_________ investigation of the spill, to determine if any of the parties
involved — _________, which was leasing the rig, which made it liable
for the spill’s damage; _________, which owned the rig; and
_________, which was involved in the effort to seal the well that
preceded the blast — had violated _________ laws. Congressional
investigators were told of sharp conflicts in the hours before the blast,
which killed _________ workers, over how to handle the capping of the
well, and uncovered evidence of missed _________ signs. An internal
memo showed that BP had chosen the _________ of two methods of
capping, despite worries about the risks involved.
As the weeks dragged on and BP failed repeatedly to plug the leak, the
spill grew into a major political challenge for _________. It upended the
debate on his proposal in March to expand _____________ — he halted
virtually all drilling projects in late May — and seemed to derail a
bipartisan attempt at energy and climate legislation in the Senate. The
spill and its aftermath also brought to light the enduring laxity of
_________ regulation of offshore operations and led to plans to revamp
the branch of the Interior Department responsible.
Word Bank

Oil        Florida    United States    wetlands     30,000    shores

12,000     years      Transocean       environmental          cheaper

August     1989       11               offshore drilling      federal

Exxon Valdez          Louisiana        criminal               Halliburton

60,000                BP               President Obama        warning