Oil leak 5 times larger than initial estimate, could reach Florida beaches

NASA satellite image of oil slick taken Apr. 25. Source: mongabay.com.

In a press conference late Wednesday, government officials revealed that oil is leaking into the Gulf of Mexico at a rate five times higher than initially estimated.

According to the New York Times, Rear Adm. Mary E. Landry of the Coast Guard said a scientist from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had concluded that oil is leaking at the rate of 5,000 barrels a day, not 1,000 as had been estimated. While emphasizing that the estimates are rough given that the leak is at 5,000 feet below the surface, Admiral Landry said the new estimate came from observations made in flights over the slick, studying the trajectory of the spill and other variables.

Cleanup efforts near Louisiana coast, Apr. 28. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Based on the initial estimate on Tuesday, the St. Petersburg Times reported that unless the oil slick is contained, it could wind up tainting the Florida Keys and perhaps the state's Atlantic coast. The five times higher estimate now makes that scenario far more likely.

At midday Wednesday, the edge of the approximately 600-mile in diameter spill was 23 miles off the Louisiana coast near fragile estuaries and swamps teeming with shrimp, oysters, birds and other wildlife. According to Reuters, the Coast Guard said that the oil sheen and emulsified crude slick is larger than the state of West Virginia. It is currently about 60 miles from the nearest Florida beaches in Pensacola.

Efforts to cap the well 5,000 feet below the gulf's surface with robotic submersibles have been unsuccessful. Due the complexity of capping a well with at least three leaks that far beneath the ocean surface, other options are being considered. Engineers are frantically trying to construct a giant concrete dome to cap the well - the first of its kind, but that may take two to four weeks to complete. Another option is to drill another well into the oil field to relieve pressure, but that could take up to three months. Meanwhile, as an estimated 210,000 gallons of oil per day gush to the surface, BP, which owns the well, has begun what it has called its largest oil spill containment operation in history, involving 49 skimmers, tugs, barges, and recovery boats.

On Wednesday the Coast Guard conducted what is called an in-situ burn, a process that consists of corralling concentrated parts of the spill in a 500-foot-long fireproof boom, moving it to another location and burning it. Approximately 5,000 gallons of crude were ignited in what was described as a successful operation. According to the New York Times, such burning, however, works only when oil is corralled to a certain thickness. Burns may not be effective for most of this spill, of which 97 percent is estimated to be an oil-water mixture.

This potential eco-disaster comes in the wake of President Obama's recent decision to to lift a decades-long moratorium on offshore oil drilling along the East Coast from Delaware to Florida, in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska. The move was said to be politically motivated to gain support for a climate change bill that several Republicans said they would not vote for without "offshore drilling in a meaningful way."

After viewing the oil slick from the air, Gov. Charlie Crist (R-FL) flip-flopped on this issue once again when he said on Tuesday, "Clearly that one isn't far enough, and that's about 50 to 60 miles out. It's clearly not clean enough after we saw what we saw today - that's horrific - and it certainly isn't safe enough. It's the opposite of safe." In support of the "Drill, Baby Drill" McCain-Palin ticket in 2008, Crist had said that he would support drilling if it was far enough from shore, safe enough and clean enough. He now says the spill is proof that that is not possible, which echoes Crist's inaugural address in 2007 when he spoke of "clean rivers, beautiful beaches and coastlines free of oil drilling."

Image found on bartcop.com, courtesy of internetweekly.org.

Americans, who consume approximately 21 million barrels of oil per day, have been sold the idea that offshore drilling will drive prices down by generously increasing supply. That has never been and never will be the case. Assuming that every offshore area is made available for drilling, the added production would have little or no effect on the market. An Energy Information Administration study conducted during the Bush administration pointed out that opening up every offshore area not already available for drilling at the time would add a total of 18.17 billion barrels of oil to the market by 2020. That may sound like a lot, but at the current rate of consumption that amounts to slightly less than an 87-day supply for the U.S.

While it is imperative to reduce dependency on foreign oil by any means, less risky forms of energy production such as wind, solar and electric may gain more support in the near future. More Americans on the Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana coasts may soon begin questioning the benefits of offshore drilling when oil washes up on their beaches destroying wildlife, commercial fishing, shrimping and their quality of life. Unless technology is perfectly foolproof - and it never is - oil spills are not a matter of if, but when...and how bad.

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