Morning Bell: Gulf Oil Spill, One Year Later

Tina Korbe / April 20, 2011

A year ago today, an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico cost the lives of 11 men and threatened untold damage to the ecosystem. It was an unprecedented disaster, and the tragic loss of life it entailed made it all the more imperative that such an accident never repeat itself.

In the immediate aftermath of the catastrophe, the disaster response proved heroic: The crew of a Tidewater supply vessel rescued the 115 survivors of the explosion in little more than an hour. But in the weeks and months that followed, crisis management proved significantly less adept. It took 87 days to cap the rig’s exposed oil well, which steadily spilled oil into the Gulf. And as The Wall Street Journal reports today, the effects of the Obama Administration’s response to the spill are more apparent now than ever, with offshore oil production down 13 percent and crude oil prices up 33 percent. (more…)