The Gulf Oil Spills has Effect on Children’s Stress

This year in the Gulf of Mexico a disaster happened, that is to say oil spilled in the Gulf of Mexico. The more exact region that this happened in is the Galliano, La. therefore, people that used to go fishing there were impeded and the economy, the jobs and everything took an entire bad turnover.

While children used to go fishing with their parents, such as Zack Wilkerson, a nine year old child used to, they no longer can go fishing as the oil has spreaded all over the Gulf of Mexico. Anyhow, apart from the fishing impact that this oil has on the families, it as well will make them leave the town of Bayou Lafourche, as the fishing and the tourism jobs will be gone, or the vast majority are already gone. This makes Zack wonder if as well some of his friends will be gone, as he returns to school.

What the specialists are mainly concerned about this summer is the impact this toll will have on children’s mental health as many things will change around them and in their town. These things will have a good impact on them and their situation.

Parents, who seem to be confronting with this situation, cut down on their family budgets and in the same time they are trying to find some extra work, implying cleaning up the oil spill. All in all, all the inhabitants living there wonder if the traditions that were left fro their grandmothers and grandfather are soon to be forgotten and lost forever.

The children are affected as well; those that realize what actually happen are worried and concerned: “I keep hearing about it,” Zack said of the oil spill and the daily updates he gets from his dad. “Sometimes I wonder if it will ever end.” The Children’s Health Fund made a survey on 1,203 children and according to this survey’s results, more then a third of the children from the impacted areas of the Gulf Coast in Louisiana and Mississippi are said to have experienced some physical and mental problems. This is due to the fact that the spill set off by April and an explosion of an offshore drilling rig happened. The parents of those children reported they are having behavioral problems as they are nervous all the time, depressed, not getting enough sleep and as well having trouble in getting along with each other.

Apart from the low income that each hose has begun to register, they feel that this is a another important reason for them to move one and move out from this region.

In the same region, five years ago, the Hurricane Katrina affected the lives of people living there. This affected as well just as in this case, children that started to encounter some psychological problems. In addition to this, the oil spill came over the region. They most certainly are not living in a healthy environment and something must be done bout this.

The president of the fund of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, is planning on bringing some doctors in the Gulf to treat the remaining children there. They are to provide the proper mental and physical care to the children suffering from disorders, from nightmares, that have rashes, which suffer from breathing problems or other physical effects.

While some of the people there have made their way through and have dealt with this situation finding out some other jobs that are in accordance to the situation in the Gulf, as the mother of Zack that is a security guard at Port Fourchon and his father that is a contractor for the BP, some of their friends have already lost their jobs.

Anyhow, fishing has helped in maintaining a good family budget and of spending no more money on food. But now, the families that have children usually depend on the food supply that their children receive from the school. People that worked as a fisherman have lost their jobs and have no other thing left to do.

Despite of the believe that this is all about fishing, the town has as well other industries it deals with, such as biologists. Some of the students are rethinking their career paths, according to the senior biology teacher Michael Melancon at South Lafourche High School

. Students are intrigued about their future situations and they ask themselves whether is there going to be any future for them in that region.

There are a lot of things to think about and the local authorities seem to concentrate more on their spill oil problem than on the affects the entire situations happening in teh region has on children and families there.

The BP and the US officials have expressed their belief that the actions of having pumped five hundred barrels of cement into the well from a ship on top of 2,300 barrels of heavy drilling mud pumped on Thursday. This is a process that is supposed to send oil in the well back down into the reservoir.

According to officials the drill should stop on Sunday night. Before this ever from happening, the BP effort to seal the well failed, as underwater cameras kept showing huge volumes of oil boiling into the murky water.

As there were not taken the proper measures into it, 11 workers were killed and at this moment an investigation is in order regarding this killing situation, the motives and the culprits.

What is now showing in this Gulf, the sheen or tar balls, are actually a fourth part of the oil that remained into the water.  The on scene coordinator in the Gulf is not very optimistic, as he expects to see theses tar balls wash up on shore for months or even for years.