BP Gulf Oil Gusher is Worst US Oil Spill by Far

The underwater gusher of crude from the BP rig wreckage in the Gulf is the greatest oil spill disaster the U.S. has ever suffered. The flow from the Deepwater Horizon well has been unstoppable for more than a month, but progress was being made at stemming the flow by May 27th. The Interior Department released its new estimate from two different teams of scientists that the well has been spewing between 504,000 and more than a million gallons a day — which is up to 23,000 barrels a day. Earlier, NPR’s Richard Harris first asked scientists to analyze a video of the oil billowing from the oceanfloor pipe and they calculated “an astonishing value for the rate of the oil spill: 70,000 barrels a day — much higher than the [first] official estimate of 5,000 barrels a day.” The N Y TImes also reported on scientists whose estimates were up to 100,000 barrels The Valdez ship spill in Alaska in 1989 spilled 11,000,000 gallons, which is 261,000 barrels. Oil slick, “mousse” and tar balls have begun to reach the rich and irreplaceable marshland of the Mississippi Delta and beaches on Alabama’s Dolphin Island. The most important fishery in the nation has been shut down. The growing slick has been moving west beyond the mouth of the Mississippi R., but the crude is expected to eventually foul beaches which create billions of dollars in tourism around the Gulf. Florida’s beaches are estimated to be worth $19 billion a year to the state’s economy.

Hearings in Washington and New Orleans have begun, with questions focused on how the rig blow-out occurred, what responsibility will be taken by BP and the two other companies involved, and how the drilling was given an ill-fated easy pass as “safe” by the U.S. government. It is unconceivable to many that BP, with $5.6 billion in profits just last quarter, could botch the drill pipe seal and also not have a detailed plan for an accident. Others point out that oil companies have leaked a lot of oil and have not had to show much safety or emergency expertise with Bush Administration policies, which largely remain in place. A report on Living on Earth said “…federal officials responsible for enforcing the law in public waters exempted the BP rig from a full environmental impact analysis.” The Government Accounting Office found that in Alaska oil drilling oversight, the Interior Department did not have instructions about judging oil company plans against the National Environmental Policy Act, and that offshore drilling was considered not to have any significant environmental impact. The group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility found that President Obama apparently disregarded clear warnings from NOAA of the dangers to coastal areas when he announced plans to increase offshore oil exploration (see below) — this plan is now in review. There is plenty of evidence bubbling to the surface that the safety equipment which was supposed to seal the well in case of accident was faulty in many ways. The New York Times has a continuing collection of many information sources, including an interactive map of the oil slick.

Our addiction to oil is not soon to be cured, but we need to understand the risks it carries not only because of global warming, but also to our coastal land and waters. These ecosystems are riches beyond calculation and are not replaceable at any cost. It is so much less expensive to immediately employ our ingenuity and industrial strength to use much less oil than we do now.

Source: http://www.worldviewofglobalwarming.org