The Oily Gulf

After the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, a desperate final attempt at stopping the ongoing oil spill of the underwater pipe is underway. A prototype chamber has been built- of which there is only one- and will be lowered down to the section of the pipe that is leaking in order to contain the still-leaking oil. After the chamber is lowered, which should take about two days, a pipe will be connected to the top of the chamber, which will absorb and direct the oil into containment vessels on the surface. As for the oil already in the ocean, the cleanup is likely to continue for a very long time, and the damage that it has had and will have on the ecosystem of that region is most likely devastating. In order to illustrate the damage that an oilspill has on the ecosystem, one can turn to the 1898 oil spill in Alaska- the area of the oilspill has yet to recover from the oilspill, both in terms of the ecosystem and of the economy of the local fishing villages.