Effect of Oil Spills and Steps of Prevention.
A wrecked supertanker, with a black tidal wave of volatile crude oil spilling from its side, has become a powerful symbol of the destruction of the ocean's wildlife population and the natural environment. On a seemingly regular basis, the nation's newspapers and television screens are wallpapered with vivid images of tankers spilling crude oil, also known as petroleum, and oil soaked sea birds in various stages of death and decay. Crude oil plays a vital role and has even become an absolute necessity in the modern industrial society. It is utilized to provide fuel and lubricants for machinery, manufacture asphalt, plastics, medicines, pesticides, paints, and is even used to aid in creating electricity. However, when this versatile and powerful resource is uncontrolled, it can annihilate marine life as well as decimate the environment and economy of an entire region. The basic facts are that the technology of oil, its extraction, transport, and refinery use, have outpaced laws to control that technology and prevent oil from polluting the environment. In an online article written by Stuart Baird, only about 20% of oil spills are the result of tanker accidents while the remaining 80% is largely a result of routine oil tanker operations such as emptying ballast tanks. The effects on the environment from oil spills are severe, however there are many precautionary measures that can be taken to reduce the amount of crude oil that is unnecessarily released into the oceans every year.
To fully understand the consequences crude oil spills have on the environment, it is important to first recognize the properties of it. When oil is released into a marine environment it will ultimately splinter into several different components, each with their own specific properties posing their own specific threat to the environment. In many cases involving tankers, offshore wells, and other deep-sea spills, a sizable portion of the oil catches fire.