With the final days of the summer session ticking away I have found that my mind rests not on final exams or papers that are due in short time, but rather on a quickly approaching seven-day vacation where I will venture away from Lubbock and find myself caching some rays on the beautiful Gulf coast beaches, or so I hope.

Since I was little my family and I have traveled to the same white sandy beaches of Fort Morgan, Alabama for a week of rest and relaxation.  At the tip of this 22-mile strip of peninsula lies the famous Fort Morgan, a military fort used by the Confederates in the Civil War to ward off enemies attempting to enter Mobile Bay.

It is hard to imagine the problems the Confederates faced while trying to protect the coastal waters of Mobile Bay during the Civil War, but I can bet they couldn’t fathom the dangers these coastal waters would face in due time. Fast forward 145 years and the same 22-mile strip of pristine gulf coast waters now face a much different battle; a battle many would like to think is over, but in reality has just begun.

In April the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, just off the coast of Louisiana. After months of attempting to stop the leak, BP was finally successful in stopping the flow of oil from the leaking well but not before an estimated 160 million gallons of oil was spilled into the partially landlocked body of water.

Today, in what may be regarded as one of the most important days of 2010, BP will attempt to “static kill” the broken well. What this means is that BP is essentially going to stuff drilling mud into the well to kill the flow and then cover the well with cement.

I would be more optimistic about this procedure if I hadn’t paid any attention to the news, which ever so perfectly detailed each of BP’s failed attempts to stop the disaster over the past three months.

What looms over this all is the uncertainty the disaster is still dishing out. As of now, the flow of oil has been decreased — but according to BP, some oil is still seeping out through the sea floor.

Even more concerning is the “Dead Zone” in the Gulf, which according to scientists is becoming larger due in part to the oil spill. For those that don’t know, the “Dead Zone” is an area of oxygen-deprived water that has been linked to large amounts of dying fish in the Gulf of Mexico each year.

Now, looking toward the end of this week and my trip to the beach, I can’t help but worry about what will happen today. Will the “static kill” work as planned? Will the already suffering economies of the Gulf coast be hit even harder?

In all seriousness, this disaster is still far from over, especially since there is no way to predict the long-term affects the oil will inevitably have. Rather than letting this take a backseat in all of our minds, we need to be proactive in keeping ourselves up to date with ways in which we can help prevent this from happening again.

For those who are unaware, Seshadri Ramkumar, a textile researcher in Texas Tech’s Institute of Environmental and Human Health, developed a nonwoven cotton product that has been approved by the Environmental Protection Agency for the purpose of cleaning oil out of the waters of the Gulf. This is just one example of a proactive effort made by an everyday individual to help the disaster.

If we all do our part, we can put this disaster behind us and, hopefully, prevent similar ones from happening in the future.