The BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill (Research Paper Sample)

THE BP DEEPWATER OIL SPILLNameInstitution
Statement of Purpose
It is the now the second decade of the 21st century but disaters are still inevitable. As it has been previously witnessed, diasaters both natural and others that have been caused by man made mistakes have been taking place. The purpose of this paper is to provide a deep-seated indulgent into disaster management based on the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spillage. This paper will conduct an expert analysis and assessment of the available literature on the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spillage, utilizing various case studies with the aim of understanding the cause and major problem that lead to and contributed to the disaster. BP Deepwater oil spillage arose on 20th April 2010 in on an oil rig operated and owned by BP international. The BP deepwater spillage was as a result of an explosion which resulted in the sinking of the oil rig which went out of control for over eighty seven days and nights leading to eleven deaths (Babbie, 2015).
BP oil company disaster management during the spillage was used to deal with the effects of compensation of the affected families and cleaning of the beaches. It is clear that there is a need for improvement in the disaster management plans given that the deepwater spillage is a sign that bigger disasters are possible in future (Atlas & Hazen, 2011). In the research, the topic is given full coverage for the identification of the risks and how to prepare for them in case they occur. Most of all preparation is the crucial part and is followed by the equipping the facilities which are higher at risk with the disaster management equipment and other plans like evacuation plans. This research paper will look into every detail of the steps and how well they are meant to control the BP Deepwater spillage. This will help us formulate improvements in the conclusion and helps us understand the topic better.
Problem Statement
Essentially the occurrence of these disasters causes detrimental effects to the environment. In particular, the BP deepwater oil spill was one of the disasters that led to great loss of marine life. In addition, this oil spillage affected the shipping activities thus caused a negative impact on the economy. Moreover, when people used the water that was affected by the spillage for drinking purposes, it led to health impairments effects. Most of all, when the oil evaporates, it releases toxic gases to the atmosphere most of which drilled through the ozone layer. Eventually such disasters lead to climatic change due to the effects of global warming.
In accordance with Hayward, the former CEO, BP, the oil spillage emerged into a disaster primarily due to unpreparedness. On the word of Hayward, "…to tell the truth we did not have the essential tools needed in our tool kit" (Winmark, 2011). This paper is meant to analyze the disaster and using the available scholarship and establish a sustainable that can be used to control such occurrences of another oil spillage disaster through increased preparedness.
Nonetheless Mejri & De Wolf, in their 2013 case study maintained that it is rather substantial to note that despite the fact that the disaster was caused by unpreparedness it was instigated by the fact that BP ignored the duty and necessity of crisis management prior to the crisis, at the time of the crisis, and after the crisis (p. 54). Additionally and explicitly BP ignored the fact that communication in the initial event of the crisis be very crucial to the company image-wise and brand-wise and to manage the crisis as a whole (Mejri & De Wolf, 2013, p. 55).
Mejri and Hayward seem to acknowledge that the organization was unprepared for the crisis prior to, during and after and mainly attributable to a crisis in communication. Bearing in mind that disasters are inevitable, this leads us with no choice, but then to center on disaster management for our companies. Haddow (2013) sustains that the errors that BP International made resulted in a lengthy destruction which compelled me to make research on the methods that can be used to control the occurrence of other oil disasters. Haddow found that the BP did not have a management plan for containing damages and thus the destruction lasted for months.
Research Question
In the future how do we prepare and handle such disasters in a way to prevent damages?
After every disaster there are immediate effects or damages and ones that are to be experienced in the future. Immediate effects entail the damages that are experienced a short time from when the disaster occurs and do not last for a long while. On the other hand the long term damages of a disaster are the ones experienced long after the disaster is subdued, and the activities of the organizations are resumed or abandoned for good. Actually these are the worse kind of damages in that the cause environmental degradation and can cause long term defects to the environment. In our case the oil spillage in the deep sea had both the long and short-term damages. Meanwhile the short-term damages were the one of employee’s injuries who had treatment and healed. The long-term damage involves the death of marine life creatures, and this resulted in an imbalance in the ecosystem. Even worse these effects are to be felt in future due to the species lost in the disaster some will never be replaced due to their rear species availability.
Subsequently this brings us to our main research question considering that the BP organization did not have the plan to curb the long term damages. This makes it very important that any other organization with similar interest should use the oil spillage disaster as a reference point in building their disaster management plan. More so disaster management plan will ensure that even in the case where the affected party cannot fight for their rights, they are taken care of. In the case of BP oil spillage, the marine life was a party that cannot fight for their rights but with a well-planned disaster management plan they would have been compensated. This missed in this case and lead to a prolonged court battle between the company and wildlife activist.
Literature Review
Preliminary Activities
Kothari et al, (2011) and Haddow (2013) in their literature maintains that disaster management is not just a plan but should be an active process which should bring the whole organization on board. From the management to the workers every person has a role to play in the implementation of the disaster management plan whereby the failure of a single player in the plan means that the whole plan is doomed. Thus, teamwork is of high importance indealing with the disasters management plan in that every party in the plan has a role to play. The plan is also listed as a group of activities which are aimed at achieving a given results (Kothari et al., 2011)
The activities include:
Pre-incident training and testing
Essentially this is the initial step which involves identifying the people in the sector which the risk rate is highest. The workers and the resident around the BP oil spill area zones should undertake training on risk possible and ways to prevent the risks. The workers do not stop at that but take a step ahead to be trained on how to manage the oil disaster in case they occur. Additionally the workers should undergo real life simulation exercises to ensure they are well educated about the disaster risks. The final step is training on how to test the apparatus been used in their environment (Silliman et al., 2012; Wattegama, 2014). In particular the training process should be a continuous process where a worker in any organization should regularly be trained.
Communicating
The oil spill disaster in Mexico has been so big than they should have been anticipated. The main cause of prolonged damages is due to miscommunication before and during the time the disaster has occurred. Additionally Mejri & De Wolf maintain that effective communication is the key to management of the oil disaster, the make it the stage that should be well-taken care off (Mejri & De Wolf, 2013). Most of all the organization should have a plan well laid to educate workers on routes used alert in case of disaster. There should also be route set out to be used in cases of disaster to ensure that the workers are easy to evacuate. Finally there should be a specific protocol for the organization or company compound to assemble the workers in case of a disaster in an organization for easy accounting of people and to help in the evacuation process.
Incident Assessment
Incident assessment is the process of looking into financial implications that the oil disaster will bring to an organization. This should happen before the damages. As a result of the disaster have occurred or have passed. This will make an organization to come up with ways to prepare for such instances, like getting an insurance cover. This will ensure that the organization will note have to suffer huge financial constraints in times of the oil disaster. In this stage, the operation should be prioritized to ensure critical functions are operational as soon as possible.
Disaster Management
In keeping with Silliman et al., (2012) and Wattegama (2014) disaster management involves the following five phase:
Prevention
As a matter of fact prevention is the most recent method to be added to the list of BP oil disaster management. The method is planned to work on both personal and organization level in every community setting. The method focuses on how a person on his level can prevent personal hazard from affecting them. On the organization, bases are when the workers are educated how to protect the organizationfrom an oil disaster. When the two methods are integrated, they yield a way that keeps the organization protected with reduced risks. The organization is therefore we...