Spill, Baby, Spill
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One of the worst environmental disasters in history: that’s what they’re calling the oil leak in the Gulf Coast that was set off by the explosion of a BP oil rig on April 20. Estimates put the amount of oil spilling into the gulf at about 200,000 gallons of oil a day. At that rate, the BP disaster is set to eclipse the Exxon Valdez tanker disaster in a matter of three months—about the time it would take to build a relief well.
As Riki Ott meticulously chronicled in her book, Not One Drop: Betrayal and Courage in the Wake of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill, in the two decades since the tanker spilled its filthy guts into Prince William Sound, the community and the wildlife has never fully recovered. Will we actually learn anything this time? Or will the voice of reason be drowned out by cries of “Drill, Baby, Drill”?
From NPR:
The oil slick could become the nation’s worst environmental disaster in decades, threatening hundreds of species of fish, birds and other wildlife along the Gulf Coast, one of the world’s richest seafood grounds, teeming with shrimp, oysters and other marine life.
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal declared a state of emergency Thursday, which allows the state to free up resources to prepare for the oil’s impact.
The Coast Guard has worked with British oil giant BP, which operated the rig that exploded April 20 and then sank, to deploy floating booms, skimmers and chemical dispersants, and to set controlled fires to burn the oil off the water’s surface.
Obama has pledged that his administration will use “every single resource at our disposal.” Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and environmental protection administrator Lisa Jackson will travel to the Gulf of Mexico on Friday to oversee efforts to contain the spill.
BP confirmed Thursday that up to 5,000 barrels, or 200,000 gallons, of oil a day are spilling from the site of the deadly oil rig explosion in which 11 workers are still missing and presumed dead.
At that rate, the spill could easily eclipse the worst oil spill in U.S. history — the 11 million gallons that leaked from the grounded tanker Exxon Valdez in Alaska’s Prince William Sound in 1989 — in the three months it could take to drill a relief well and plug the gushing well 5,000 feet underwater on the seafloor. Ultimately, the spill could grow much larger than the Valdez because Gulf of Mexico wells typically hold many times more oil than a single tanker.
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