The Gulf of Mexico’s seven-year oil spill

[n2doc]

BY JESS ZIMMERMAN
6 FEB 2012 1:31 PM
Whatever, BP; Taylor Energy Company was spilling oil in the Gulf of Mexico way before it went mainstream. A broken Taylor wellhead has been leaking as much as 4,000 gallons a day into the Gulf for the last seven years, according to a lawsuit filed by water conservation groups Apalachicola Riverkeeper and Waterkeepers Alliance.
The reason you haven't heard about this is that Taylor is playing it seriously close to the vest. The suit says that Taylor failed to inform basically anyone about the well failure, or any peripheral information that might help determine how serious it is and what action needs to be taken:

Taylor has failed to provide the public with information regarding the pace and extent of the oil leaks and Taylor's efforts to control the leaks. Indeed, Taylor has failed to specify: (1) How many of the wells at the Mississippi Canyon Block 20 (MC 20) site are still leaking oil, (2) How many of the wells at the MC 20 site have been completely decommissioned, (3) When the remaining wells at the MC 20 site will be completely decommissioned, (4) When the oil leak will be completely stopped, and (5) How much sub-surface oil from the MC 20 site is currently in the Gulf.

If the well is really leaking as much as the conservation groups claim -- they're working with estimates, since Taylor isn't exactly rushing to provide hard data -- then this could have twice as much impact on the Gulf as the BP spill in 2010. At 4,000 gallons a day for seven years, the leak would have dumped 10.2 million gallons, compared with 4.9 million from the BP spill.
http://grist.org/list/#item-the-gulf-of-mexicos-seven-year-oil-spill

[TheWraith]

1. It doesn't quite work that way.

"At 4,000 gallons a day for seven years, the leak would have dumped 10.2 million gallons, compared with 4.9 million from the BP spill."

That's sort of like saying that if you ate 2,500 calories a day for 10 years, you'll be just as fat as if you ate 25,000 calories a day for one year. Oil breaks down in the environment over time, so the concentration would never have been anything remotely close to matching the BP spill. Another, better way of putting it is comparing it to alcohol; your body could safely handle a certain amount every day for a month, but half as much delivered all at once could be dangerous. All things considered, the BP spill was much more dangerous.