Case Study: The Gulf Coast and the BP Oil Spill

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Case Study: The Gulf Coast and the BP Oil Spill

About the Gulf Coast

The Gulf of Mexico is bordered by five of the United States: Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. It is also bordered by Mexico and is the location of Cuba. The gulf itself covers an expanse of 600,000 square miles and has a developed a circulation pattern for the waters (General Facts about the Gulf of Mexico, 2011). Water enters the Yucatan Strait, flows through the Loop Current, and exits through the Florida Strait (2011). The way in which the water flows creates the well-known current, the Gulf Stream. The Gulf Coast acts as a major drainage pool for the thirty-three major rivers and two-hundred and twenty-seven estuaries from the United States alone (2011).

The states that line the Gulf have excellent opportunities to take advantage of the resources the gulf has to offer. With 16,000 miles of coast in the United States alone, the Gulf provides easy access to fishing, natural resources, and recreation opportunities (2011). The population of the Gulf is expected to hit 61.4 million by 2025 with Florida and Texas expected to house most of the new population (2011). Tourism boosts the economy by $20 billion each year and seven of the top-ten seaports are located along the Gulf Coast (2011). The Gulf “yields more finfish, shrimp, and shellfish annually than the south and mid-Atlantic, Chesapeake, and New England areas combined,” and is home to about 45,000 bottlenose dolphins (2011).

About the Oil Spill

On April 20, 2010, a tragic disaster hit the Gulf Coast. British Petroleum’s (BP) Deepwater Horizon rig exploded spewing crude oil into the ocean from the three major cracks in the rig. It rivaled the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill within days of explod...

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