On April 20th, 2010, the world was made aware of the worst Oil Spill in US history, the BP Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill. According to the Associated Press, 140.6 million gallons of oil has been leaked into the Gulf of Mexico affecting marine, plant, and human life.
On July 20th, 2010, an inflatable bladder in Tempe Town Lake collapsed, thus pouring out the lake into the Salt River. According to Fox News, the Lake is almost a billion gallons full, and just now created a dangerous situation for anyone nearby that may be swimming, or walking along the banks of the river. Several homeless camps are set up along Tempe Town Lake, and now emergency crews are trying to move them out of harm's way.
What do these two events have in common? Besides the coincidental fact that they happened exactly three months apart from each other, both events could have been prevented if the parts were maintained.
For the BP Oil Spill, they did not want to spend a decent amount of money on a part that they needed to maintain their oil rigs. The explosion that started it all killed 11 workers. Now because they did not feel like spending money, according to the Christian Science Monitor, it will cost the company over 12.5 billion dollars related to cleanup costs as well as the 11 worker's lives and all of the marine and plant life that has been killed as well.
For Tempe Town Lake, according to Fox News, "The bladders were supposed to be maintained or replaced by now, but the project was pushed back because of the hefty price tag."
Thankfully emergency services are taking care of our homeless to make sure they are somewhere safe and hopefully there will be no reports of injuries while crews are taking care of this situation as we speak.
Although the Lake is not as catastrophic as the BP Oil Spill, people and way of life will indeed be affected by this situation. It should make companies realize that they have a responsibility to the people because the people trust in them to take care of things like this. The only difference that may lie between the two events is that BP had the funds to prevent this problem from happening, while the City of Tempe may not have.
The question is, would the two have fixed the problem if they could have afforded to, and in plenty of time to have prevented these two situations from happening?
To follow the story:
Tempe town lake dam broken and leaking
Rubberized dam breaks at man-made Arizona lake
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