Earth Equity News

Fire Boats May Have Helped Sink the Oil Rig. By Bryce Hall, Slate, May 6, 2010. "In the first hours after the explosion, most of the spilled oil was burning off in the fire, and the initial damage estimates were small. But when the Deepwater Horizon turned over on its 400-foot pontoons, the mile-long pipe that connected it to the underwater wellhead collapsed like a mess of spaghetti. Now the oil is leaking from this jumbled steel on the ocean floor at two sites where the pipe buckled and broke. If the first rescue crews on the scene had somehow been able to prevent the rig from sinking, they might have disconnected the pipe safely and capped it near the surface. So what happened? The fireboat crews tried to extinguish the flames as quickly as possible so they might board the oil rig to search for survivors and contain the spill. In the end, though, their efforts to battle the fire may have made the situation worse. By pouring hundreds of thousands of gallons of water and flame-retardant foam onto the rig, it's possible that the fireboats helped sink the Deepwater Horizon."