Coney Island Mermaid Parade — “Mermaids” protesting the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Disaster. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
By: Julian Harris Gibson
Breaking News / Photo: ABCNews.com
Reports have just surfaced about a platform explosion on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico off the Louisiana coast. The oil rig is located 20 nautical miles off the shore of Grand Isle, LA and owned and operated by Black Elk Energy Co.
According to Coast Gaurd spokesperson Carlos Vega, four workers have been commercially airlifted to nearby hospitals, two workers may be dead and more are feared missing. Three of the rescued workers are in critical condition at Parish Hospitals.
At the moment, details are still coming in about this disaster, but on the heels of BP‘s $4 billion plea deal related to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010 the timing couldn’t be worse.
Reporters are stating that this explosion happened while performing maintenence on the shallow water platform. Experts say these type of platforms are placed in 500 ft. of water or less so there is a slim chance of suffering a deepwater oil leak as in the BP spill on Deepwater Horizon in 2010.
This incident is further proof that Americans must force Congress to strengthen regulations on off shore drilling so these accidents can become few and far between. The fact that no major regulations have been put in place since the BP oil spill in 2010 says that big oil’s influence in Washington is so great, it may cost us billions of dollars in damage to our eco-system and several more lives before off-shore drilling is regulated properly.
With the discovery of more pockets of oil and natural gas, safety must take priority over profits. We will follow the details of this latest story and follow-up as information becomes available.
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