by J. Alan Beck

Created on: April 30, 2010

A little more than a week after the tragic explosion at the Deepwater Horizon oil platform, we're discovering that an environmental disaster is unfolding before our eyes.  The ultimate environmental effects of its spreading oil spill depend greatly upon how rapidly and effectively the incident can be contained.

Along with the U.S. Coast Guard, platform lessee British Petroleum (BP PLC) provided early reports that no oil was leaking from the well head following the 4/20/10 explosion and fire. Several days later however, the Coast Guard

discovered that oil was in fact leaking from the damaged site. 

Estimates – difficult to accurately quantify at the 5,000 feet (1,500 m) deep drilling site – were then put at approximately 1000 barrels of oil per day.

Unfortunately, we are now learning that the “leak” is much worse than first thought. Current estimates are that 5000 barrels are spewing from the (now-termed) “blown out” well, or 200,000 gallons of oil a day.

The resulting slick continues to grow, with a recent estimate of 600 miles in circumference. The first portions of oily residue are already reaching the outer Louisiana shoreline.

As with very large spills of the past, environmental effects are likely to be severe. As there is little useful progress with containing or reducing the swelling spill at this writing, one must assume a worst-case scenario. (I.e., “Relief” wells near the original site may take months to complete.

Additional containment and oil spill countermeasures (dispersants and in situ surface oil burns) are currently being attempted; but their eventual effectiveness is difficult to predict.)

Assuming that Deepwater Horizon is in fact a difficult-to-cap blowout, such situations can produce the largest oil spills ever. In fact the “worst case” has already essentially occurred, also within the Gulf of Mexico: In June, 1979 the two-mile deep exploratory well IXTOC 1 blew out in Mexico's Bay of Campeche, 600 miles south of Texas.

Relief wells helped response crews eventually cap the site nine months later. 140 million gallons of oil were released into the environment, more than twelve times the amount spilled in Alaska's 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster. IXTOC 1 fouled the distant beaches of south Texas for more than a year after it began.

Emulsified oil from the blowout was eventually sighted up to 1000 kilometers away from the site. One study also suggested that 25 percent of IXTOC’s

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>