Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumA 14-year-long oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico verges on becoming one of the worst in U.S. history.
By Darryl Fears
October 21 at 6:07 PM
NEW ORLEANS An oil spill that has been quietly leaking millions of barrels into the Gulf of Mexico has gone unplugged for so long that it now verges on becoming one of the worst offshore disasters in U.S. history.
Between 300 and 700 barrels of oil per day have been spewing from a site 12 miles off the Louisiana coast since 2004, when an oil-production platform owned by Taylor Energy sank in a mudslide triggered by Hurricane Ivan. Many of the wells have not been capped, and federal officials estimate that the spill could continue through this century. With no fix in sight, the Taylor offshore spill is threatening to overtake BPs Deepwater Horizon disaster as the largest ever.
As oil continues to spoil the Gulf, the Trump administration is proposing the largest expansion of leases for the oil and gas industry, with the potential to open nearly the entire outer continental shelf to offshore drilling. That includes the Atlantic coast, where drilling hasnt happened in more than a half century and where hurricanes hit with double the regularity of the Gulf.
Expansion plans come despite fears that the offshore oil industry is poorly regulated and that the planet needs to decrease fossil fuels to combat climate change, as well as the knowledge that 14 years after Ivan took down Taylors platform, the broken wells are releasing so much oil that researchers needed respirators to study the damage.
I dont think people know that we have this ocean in the United States thats filled with industry, said Scott Eustis, an ecologist for the Gulf Restoration Network, as a six-seat plane circled the spill site on a flyover last summer. On the horizon, a forest of oil platforms rose up from the Gulfs waters, and all that is left of the doomed Taylor platform are rainbow-colored oil slicks that are often visible for miles. He cannot imagine similar development in the Atlantic, where the majority of coastal state governors, lawmakers, attorneys general and residents have aligned against the administrations proposal.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/a-14-year-long-oil-spill-in-the-gulf-of-mexico-verges-on-becoming-one-of-the-worst-in-us-history/2018/10/20/f9a66fd0-9045-11e8-bcd5-9d911c784c38_story.html?utm_term=.be10c1a0aa14
rampartc
(5,407 posts)whoever made this mess must be forced to clean it up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphaned_and_abandoned_wells_in_the_United_States
the usual problem is that a corporation is chartered for each specifific well. when the well stops producing, the corporation is dissolved or bankrupted, leaving the mess.
Ilsa
(61,695 posts)the Gulf of Mexico. I don't trust it. In fact, I've lost desire to eat seafood from almost anywhere.
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)There was a lot of talk about the corexit that BP used to sink the oil.
And now we find out that farmed salmon are heavily toxic.
Ilsa
(61,695 posts)at the botgom of a bay, etc. No more flounder for me. A friend was eating catfish, and it made her sick.
JudyM
(29,250 posts)JudyM
(29,250 posts)that finds and tracks oil spills.
https://www.skytruth.org/2017/12/taylor-energy-site-23051-cumulative-spill-report-2017-update/