"an Exxon Valdez every four days"

[marmar]

from the Guardian UK:




Marine scientists study ocean-floor film of Deepwater oil leak
One analysis suggests gusher is 70,000 barrels daily, or an Exxon Valdez every four days, and 12 times more powerful than estimates by Coast Guard or BP

Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 13 May 2010 20.55 BST


Marine scientists were carefully viewing footage of oil and gas billowing out of a ruptured well on the ocean floor today, to try to deliver the first reliable estimates of the crude gushing into the Gulf of Mexico – it could be as much as 70,000 barrels a day.

The video could help resolve the increasingly contentious debate about the scale of the disaster, and the oil companies' willingness to give access to any information.

BP has claimed repeatedly there is no way of measuring the scale of the leak. The US Coast Guard, meanwhile, has stuck to an early estimate of 5,000 barrels a day.

Independent marine researchers have suggested the spill could be much larger.

National Public Radio in the United States last night reported that the well is spewing up to 70,000 barrels of oil a day – the equivalent of an Exxon Valdez disaster every four days. Nearly 11 million gallons of oil were spilled in Alaska's Prince William Sound in 1989 when the Exxon Valdez tanker ran aground, oiling beaches and poisoning marine life for generations. NPR said scientific analysis of newly released video footage from the ocean floor suggested the gusher was 12 times more powerful than estimates offered so far by the Coast Guard or BP. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/may/13/bp-oil-spill-ocean-footage

[JBoy]

1. Corporate Death Penalty for BP.

[donheld]

4. +1000

They should never be allowed to drill so much as a hole in the wall ever again.

[jimshoes]

2. Who's names are going to be indelibly

and forever linked to this disaster for future generations to look back on and say these are the scoundrels that destroyed a large percentage of our planet's ecosystem through their greed and self servitude. I would like to be able to read future history books to see what if any punishment or justice was served to the pricipals in this tragedy.

[malaise]

3. Frightening

Imagine a hurricane in the Gulf?

[Hannah Bell]

5. even before this, exxon valdez wasn't that big of a spill -- compared to others.

valdez released about 240K barrels.

1.6 million barrels release from amoco cadiz spill ('78), for example

9 million from 1991 spill in the arabian gulf

250K from burmah agate spill, galveston tx ('79)

about 2 million in nowruz field persian gulf spill 1983.

860K in 1967 spill at lands end, uk.

etc.

it's a wonder there's any life left on the plant.