Thread: Gulf Oil Spill - The Greatest Disaster Since The Flood?

Gulf Oil Spill - The Greatest Disaster Since The Flood?

Politics / Environmental Issues
Jun 23, 2010 - 01:23 AM
By Joshua S. Burnett

Joshua S. Burnett writes: Most articles begin with a purpose statement revealing what the author desires to convince the reader of. This article is different. These few paragraphs begin with a plea for someone to tell me that I’ve got the evidence all wrong and that what I see and know is a smoke filled illusion void of reality. I want someone who knows differently to tell me. So as you read this article please understand that I’m not attempting to be a fear-mongerer. Please know I’m no prophet or guru, just a guy who looks at all the evidence he has and draws conclusions. And if you know I’m wrong and why, please write and tell me.

First, let’s review the facts:

The spill has continued, unimpeded, for two months now.

No advancement has been made on actually plugging the leak.

Every attempt at plugging the leak thus far has failed, and failed totally. It’s not as if we’ve made progress and fallen just short. We haven’t done jack.

Not only have we not made any progress in plugging the leak, the estimates of how much oil is actually leaking have grown steadily to the point where the official rate is now twelve times higher than initially released (from 5k bbl/day to 60k bbl/day) and the private estimates double the official rate (120k bbl/day).

Before this, Exxon Valdez was the worst oil spill in American history. That took months for the initial cleanup and much of the oil spilled was unrecoverable (boom operations, the bread and butter of oil cleanup, only captures 20% of spilled crude) and continues to contaminate the area, years afterward. If current official estimates are to be believed (and they’re on the very low end of plausibility) we’ve got 15 Exxon Valdez’s already spilled in the Gulf. The equivalent of another Exxon Valdez is spilled every four days (every two days if private estimates of leak rates are true).

We’re now in hurricane season. We’ve averaged 11 named storm systems per season for the past 53 years.

Oil generally floats to the top of the water (exceptions to be explained later) which is the first liquid to be picked up by storm systems.

One quart of oil contaminates 250,000 gallons of water. http://www.uga.edu/bilgesock/Library/HC ... _SHORT.pdf

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is located right off the Mississippi Gulf Coast.



Just considering these facts here’s what I would consider to be the expected outcome (not the worst case): first, we wouldn’t need anything more than a tropical storm (of which we can expect 11 in the geographical vicinity this year) to pick up a massive quantity of oil and rain it all over the coast to an inland distance of several hundred miles (it isn’t uncommon for hard rain from a tropical storm to reach as far north as Tennessee). This oil will destroy all vegetation it lands on and poison any surface water and probably shallow water tables. These water sources are what all local wildlife subsists on and the source for all city water purification I know of. You obviously see the problem here. I can see some of the hardier trees surviving if we get enough pure rainfall immediately following a tropical storm or hurricane drenching, but all this would do is to rinse the oil into ponds, lakes, streams, rivers, and the water table; cleaning this up would be a multiple year nightmare; recovery for the region would be measured in decades.

But that’s not all of it; here’s where I outline my “worst caseâ€

For the first time in a LONG time, Im thankful I live in CA.

I am thankful I live in the Pacific Northwest right now. However, if this problem gets bigger, or cannot be contained, then it won't matter where you live as it could affect any location in many ways.

As well, if you live in a what you consider a "safe" location, it might not be as disaster on the Gulf and Eastern seaboard could send millions our way, and how would that affect everyone? We would be overrun in the West and find resources stretched to their limits. Let's hope and pray all of tha above does not happen and this disaster can be stopped and cleaned up.