Problems and solutions
Problems
The main issue with oil spills is the profound effects it has on the environment. The most visually recognised effect is on the animals where the normal fur, feather and skin are smothered in a layer of an oil coat. This suffocates the animal and making it hard to breathe and move around. Many of the animals affected by an oil spill painfully die and as long as the oil is not cleaned up this continue to happen. The toxic compound released from the oil can be ingested by the animals directly, through eating their pray or as they attempt to clean themselves. The oil can persist in the sediments of the surrounding ground for many years and the only way this effectively moved is through the natural process of the ground renewing itself. In cold environments with little water movement and disturbance the oil has the slowest recovery time.
Solutions
The main way to prevent the effects of oil spills is to stop them occurring all together. Many of the spills occur due to carelessness from the captains of the ships transporting the oil. When oil spills occur the major companies who own the oil and are responsible for transporting it face the consequences and are forced to pay a fine (example: the Mexican Gulf oil spill resulted in BP paying in $20 billion to the Deepwater horizon fund and $11 billion to surrounding business). The problem is that a fine of $20 billion seems like a lot but when put into perspective that BP is worth between $92 billion and $100 trillion (statistic from http://www.answers.com/Q/How_much_money_is_BP_worth , http://letsrollforums.com/bp-oil-worth-100-t21594.html) the fine seems like a minute amount for the amount of damaged caused. When the case of the oil spill is played out in court charges are usually dropped and a fine is put in place. To stop these large scale environmental disasters harsher consequences need to be put in place. The captains of the ships when recklessness occur need to be convicted and the companies themselves need to face the consequences. Even a 2 week ban on the transportation or extraction of the oil would dramatically affect the company’s sales and productivity. If these bans were put into place the major oil corporations would be more careful in the transportation and extraction of oil resulting in less oil spills.