On Friday, October 13, The U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, also known as the BSEE, responded to an oil spill that was 40 miles Southeast of Venice, Louisiana in the Gulf of Mexico. The spill had about 7,950 to 9,350 barrels of oil leaked from the underground pipe. Even though there was so much oil, it was not very visible because of how deep under the ocean the spill was. The people on the job had to look for the leak for many days. The source of the spill was thought to be from a pipe in the Mississippi Canyon Block 209.

Dr. Overton says that the spill has a large impact on the environment. The Gulf of Mexico has a lot of bacteria that breaks down the oil that goes into the water naturally, this is called natural seepage. About twenty to fifty million gallons of oil naturally seep into the Gulf of Mexico every year. When large amounts of oil enter the water, these bacteria reproduce, but are still not able to work quickly enough.

The output of the pipe is now decreased because of the fracture being shut in. Before the spill, 90,000 barrels of oil was going through a day, but now only 57,000 barrels a day. A Coast Guard that responded by saying that “The fractured jumper will be recovered and a complete diagnostic will be performed.” This is considered by many to be one of the worst oil spills in the United States of America since 2010. The oil was spilling out for four days, but was luckily, was fixed on the fourth day it was spilling. On October 16, the Monday after the spill, oil was no longer spilling out of the pipe.

Claudia Husseneder, a entomology professor at Louisiana State University, says, “There will be another big one that hits landfall.” It is very scary to think that the future oil spills are thought to become worse as time goes on.