An Oil spill along the Gulf Coast of the USA has led to massive concerns over environmental safety and corporate responsibility. Not since the 1989 Exxon Valdez Oil disaster has there been this much scrutiny of the Oil corporations.

Many have been pointing their finger at Barack Obama’s handling of this disaster as an unmitigated failure, likening it to the disaster in New Orleans when George Bush Jr. failed to respond in time. It’s been well over a month and the oil is still pumping into the Ocean and causing unknown amounts of damage to the environment and to animals that live in the area, including Humans.

Part of the problem seems to be the government’s inability to take control of the situation, instead leaving clean-up of the problem in the hands of the very people who caused the problem in the first place, the oil company BP PLC. This is due to a change in laws following the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska which made it entirely the problem of the oil company to clean and pay for any oil spills they create.

Unfortunately this oil spill has happened in the middle of an area filled with very delicate wetlands and nature reserves which makes the damage happening because of the oil that much more severe. Though there were safety precautions on the underwater pipe it seems the cutoff valve failed to work, BP has since sent 6 submersibles to try and manually shut it off but they have all failed.

They have tried a number of methods since to try and stop the flow including placing a dome over top of the spill to contain the oil, which had never been tried before at the depth of the leak, unfortunately it failed. They have now inserted a small tube into the larger leaking tube to try and divert the oil into waiting oil tankers, this is said to be partially working though some oil, and estimates vary as to how much is still leaking into the ocean.

BP will now try what they refer to as the “Top-kill” method to permanently fix the problem. This will be done by pumping heavy drilling fluids through two tubes into the blowout preventer that sits on top of the wellhead. This would first restrict the flow of oil from the well, which then could be sealed permanently with cement.

Regardless of the short term methods to fix this spill it will undoubtedly result in devastating long term effects all around the world. Not the least of which is due to their use of the chemical Corexit in their cleanup. Corexit is an Oil dispersant which is sprayed or injected into or onto the oil and allows the oil to break down and be absorbed into the water. Unfortunately Corexit is also known to cause many health problems in humans and to kill many of the animals in the area and their eggs.

Many are angry at BP for the choice of using Corexit as it is much more toxic compared to many of the competing oil dispersants they could have used. BP claims it was the only chemical ready at short notice and that’s why they chose it, however many critics have pointed out that BP and Corexit’s manufacturer Nalco have a very long business relationship and links through ownership and they claim that this is actually is why BP chose to use the more toxic and damaging chemical. The US government has since order BP to switch to another, less harmful dispersant but already almost 700,000 gallons of the chemical has been released into the ocean.