Thread/ This week’s #dwhstories will focus on the explosion of the mobile drilling rig Deepwater Horizon, the cause of the disaster, and what has changed as a result of the spill from a regulatory/safety standpoint. Background:
In March 2008, BP paid $34M to the U.S. Govt. for an exclusive drilling lease in an area of the #GulfofMexico known as Mississippi Canyon 252. (Map Source: MMS) 
The Macondo well, named after the town in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ “One Hundred Years of Solitude” would be the first exploratory well in the lease area, attempting to access a rich reservoir of oil 2.5 miles below the seabed.
The Minerals Management Service (MMS), the federal agency (formally) tasked with regulating the oil and gas industry in the U.S., had granted BP Categorical Exclusions (under NEPA) for their exploration plans & permits.
A deeper review of BP's plans may have identified concerns: the response plan included a worst-case scenario spill of 250,000 barrels & measures for addressing environmental concerns related to sea otters, walruses & sea lions, none of which reside in the #GOM. Image @dirtycoast
April 20, 2010 dawned calm and clear, with none of the oppressive humidity of later summer. The Gulf’s waters were smooth that day, as work to drill the well 41 miles offshore of the Louisiana coast drew to a close, several weeks behind schedule and nearly $60M over budget.
That day, the only large task remaining involved a cementing job. As the testing for the cement job got underway, warning signs began to surface that all was not well in the hole & that the pressure was not stabilizing as it should.
Around 9:49 pm the sound of hissing gas was followed by a loud explosion that rocked the drilling floor. Chaos and confusion in the first moments after the explosion likely gave way to panic as people realized that the fire did not seem to be losing fuel.
If the blowout preventer had activated, the well would have effectively been sealed off, cutting off the supply of fuel for the fire. Instead, the fire continued to rage as all but 11 of the 126 workers were forced to abandon the rig and await rescue.
Those 11 men lost their lives as the Deepwater Horizon rig lit up the night sky, burning uncontrollably until sinking two days later, on April 22, 2010. I knew none of them, but I think about them a lot, and hope we honor them with our restoration work.
In an effort to determine what had gone wrong, and how to prevent future disasters, Pres. Obama appointed an Oil Spill Commission to examine the causes of the oil spill & make recommendations for the future for oil spill response, oil & gas safety and environmental restoration.
The Commission summed up the disaster in one succinct sentence that they in turn borrowed from the investigation of the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger: “Complex systems fail in complex ways”. Full Commission report here: tinyurl.com/yjwounuf. @DonBoesch
What new laws or safety measures have been implemented? The details are too complex for a tweet, but I want to provide some links where you can go for more information. One big change was the reorganization of the Minerals Management Service: tinyurl.com/yk4vdrkq
Oil Spill Commissioners track the implementation of their Report recs: oscaction.org. The last update was in 2014, noting that Congress has not taken necessary actions, but that the exec. branch & industry had taken positive steps towards improving safety & enforcement.
Some of the regulatory measures have been rolled back by the Trump Administration, including rules related to blowout preventers. You can read more about that here, via @wapo: tinyurl.com/y2vmk3w3 and in an editorial by the former head of MMS: tinyurl.com/y6dlrypk.
This 2019 report from @oceana provides a detailed overview of regulatory rollbacks. tinyurl.com/ydod7uf7
Bottom line: The root causes of most “unforeseen” disasters are the result of myriad small but fateful decisions that accumulate over time, until disaster seems inevitable.
Tho we often take steps to ensure that the failures that led to a specific disaster don’t happen again, we often neglect to deal with the root causes of the failure, unwilling or unable to learn from our mistakes. This goes for any number of disasters, not just the #dwhoilspill.
What are your thoughts on progress made to date to reduce the risk of a similar oil spill? Next week we will explore the oil spill response effort, one of the largest disaster response efforts in U.S. history. In the meantime, I hope you will share your own #dwhstories.
