The majestic beauty and abundant seafood of the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana is changing as a result of the Transocean, Deepwater Horizon rig explosion with the seemingly unending spewing of crude in the Gulf water. It is almost inconceivable that today’s technology cannot seal the drill hole in an emergency to prevent the catastrophe of crude freely flowing like a volcano from the sea floor.
News reports say the oil well spewing crude into the Gulf of Mexico didn’t have a remote-control shut-off switch, which is required in other major oil-producing nations as a last-resort protection against underwater spills. U.S. regulators don’t mandate use of the remote-control device on offshore rigs, and Transocean’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig didn’t have one. With the remote control, a crew can attempt to trigger an underwater valve that shuts down the well even if the oil rig itself is damaged or evacuated. Nevertheless, regulators in two major oil-producing countries, Norway and Brazil, in effect require them.
On all offshore oil rigs, there is one main switch for cutting off the flow of oil by closing a valve located on the ocean floor. Many rigs also have automatic systems, such as a “dead man” switch as a backup that is supposed to close the valve if it senses a catastrophic failure aboard the rig. As a third line of defense, some rigs have the “acoustic trigger.” It’s a football-sized remote control that uses sound waves to communicate with the valve on the seabed floor and close it.
If we have learned anything from this disaster, it is that Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas and Florida must pass laws along with Federal legislation to provide a true fail safe backup mechanism to shut oil wells to prevent the uncontrolled gushing of crude in our Gulf of Mexico water.
Richard J. Arsenault, 2011
