Oil Spill's Damage Far Greater than Once Thought
New numbers showing the amount of oil gushing from a well in the Gulf of Mexico may be double what was previously thought means the crude is likely to travel farther away, threatening more birds, fish and other wildlife that call the fragile waters their home, scientists said Friday.
The new figures could mean 42 million gallons to more than 100 million gallons of oil have already fouled the Gulf's delicate ecosystem and are affecting people who live, work and play along the coast from Louisiana to Florida — and perhaps beyond.
More oil means the giant gooey cloud can spread out over a greater distance, having far worse consequences for the environment, said Paul Montagna, a marine biologist at Texas A&M University Corpus Christi.
Special Section: Disaster in the Gulf
"Doubling the amount of oil does not have a linear effect, it doesn't double the consequences, it may instead have quadruple the consequences," Montagna, who studies the Gulf of Mexico deep sea reefs and other underwater ecosystems, said.
The new spill estimates released Thursday are worse than earlier ones — and far more costly for BP, which has seen its stock sink since the April 20 explosion that killed 11 workers and triggered the spill. Most of the new estimates had more oil flowing in an hour than what officials once said was spilling in an entire day.
The spill was flowing at a daily rate that could possibly have been as high as 2.1 million gallons, twice the highest number the federal government had been saying, said U.S. Geological Survey Director Marcia McNutt, who is coordinating estimates. But she said possibly more credible numbers are a bit lower.
Those estimates were the third — and perhaps not the last — time the U.S. government has had to increase its estimate of how much oil is gushing. Trying to clarify what has been a contentious and confusing issue, officials gave a wide variety of figures on Thursday.
But none of the estimates took into account the cutting of the well's riser pipe on June 3 — which BP said would increase the flow by about 20 percent — and subsequent placement of a cap. No estimates were given for the amount of oil gushing from the well after the cut. Nor are there estimates since a cap was put on the pipe, which already has collected more than 3 million gallons.
The increased estimates presents a larger danger to the animals who live the Gulf's coastal marshes, said John Andrew Nyman, a wetlands ecologist at Louisiana State University.
For example, the brown pelican population was believed to be near its healthy capacity before the spill, Nyman said, but with the spill continually gooing a larger area of its sensitive coastal habitat, the increase in pelican deaths could seriously impact the bird's recent recovery.
"This is a nightmare that keeps getting worse every week," said Michael Brune, the executive director of the Sierra Club. "We're finding out more and more information about the extent of the damage."
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The oil flow estimates are not nearly complete and different teams have come up with different numbers. A new team from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute came in with even higher estimates, ranging from 1 million gallons a day to 2.1 million gallons. If the high end is true, that means nearly 107 million gallons have spilled since April 20.
The Obama administration's point man for the Gulf Coast oil spill acknowledged Friday that reliable numbers are hard to get.
"I think we're still dealing with the flow estimate. We're still trying to refine those numbers," said Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said.
But even using other numbers that federal officials and scientists call a more reasonable range would have about 63 million gallons spilling since the rig explosion. If that amount was put in gallon milk jugs, they would line up for nearly 5,500 miles. That's the distance from the spill to London, where BP is headquartered, and then continuing on to Rome.
By comparison, the worst peacetime oil spill, 1979's Ixtoc 1 in Mexico, was about 140 million gallons over 10 months, and the Exxon Valdez, the previous worst U.S. oil spill, was just about 11 million gallons. The new figures mean Deepwater Horizon is producing an Exxon Valdez size spill every five to 13 days.
BP said it could double the amount of oil it captures every day by next week, reports CBS News correspondent Don Teague. But local leaders say they need more help than they're getting.
"I have spent more time fighting the officials of BO and the Coast Guard than fighting the oil," Billy Nungesser, president of Plaquemines Parish in Louisiana.
The mounting frustration at the government's response has put Allen under increasing scrutiny, but he said local officials have been given ample ability to communicate with the Coast Guard.
Allen also outlined the timetable in which containment efforts would be able to capture 40,000 to 50,000 barrels of oil daily - a level he said could be reached in the first week of July, with the construction of a new flexible riser pipe system and the arrival of two pairs of production and storage tankers, which are en route to the region.
Currently, the containment effort is capturing between 15,000 and 18,000 barrels of oil a day, which will increase to up to 28,000 barrels next week with the arrival of additional equipment, he said. Capacity could reach 38,000 barrels daily by the end of the June.
Meanwhile, oil still was washing up on Gulf beaches. But it wasn't as bad Friday morning at Orange Beach, Ala., as it had been earlier in the week. Waves brought in a foot-long chunk of what appeared to be solid oil on the white sand. One side was flat and curved, while the other was honeycombed with bubbles and a single spot where crude oozed out. Standing near the water line, Elaine Fox picked it up without a thought.
"I'm not dead, I'm not sick," Fox, of West Monroe, La., said Friday. "I think a lot of this is nothing but media hype."
With all sorts of estimates for what's flowing from the BP well — some even smaller than the amount collected by BP in its containment cap — McNutt said the most credible range at the moment is between 840,000 gallons and 1.68 million gallons a day. Then she added that it was "maybe a little bit more." Scientists used sonar, pressure readings and video analysis to make the new estimates.
Previous estimates had put the range roughly between half a million and a million gallons a day, perhaps higher. At one point, the federal government claimed only 42,000 gallons were spilling a day and then it upped the number to 210,000 gallons.
Allen said that it will be at least July before BP has the tankers in place to capture oil spilling from the well. And if undersea efforts to direct the oil to the surface succeed, it will take weeks to get the proper equipment in place to hold it, he said.
A day earlier, the White House released a letter from Allen inviting BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg and "any appropriate officials from BP" to meet Wednesday with senior administration officials. Allen said Obama, who has yet to speak with any BP official since the explosion, would participate in a portion of the meeting.
Asked if a relationship of "trust" had been established between the White House and BP, Allen said Friday that "This has to be a unified effort moving forward if we are to get this thing solved. If you call that trust, yes."
