The urgent question in the polluted Gulf of Mexico: How bad will this get? No one knows, but with each day, as the leaking oil well a mile deep remains uncapped, industry observers and scientists are crafting scenarios that range from bad to worse to worst, with some forecasting a calamity of historic proportions.
Under a worst-case scenario, the flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico could rise to 40,000 barrels a day — eight times the current estimated leakage — oil-industry executives told members of Congress on Tuesday.
Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., said the estimate was prompted by a question: What might happen if BP fails to cap the flow of oil from the well or funnel it through a giant steel box and pipe? He said the executives responded that, in a worst-case scenario, that oil could gush out at rates ranging from 10,000 barrels to 60,000 barrels a day, with 40,000 being the most likely in such circumstances.
The estimates were given in a meeting between lawmakers and executives from BP, Transocean and Halliburton — all companies connected to the damaged rig. Three of the executives were in Washington, and three others spoke on phone links from the gulf region.
Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., chairman of the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, plans to hold a hearing May 12 on the rig explosion and oil spill.
Oil may flow to the east
Several scientists have said in interviews that they believe that the “loop current” of the gulf, a powerful conveyor belt that extends some 3,000 feet deep, will almost surely take the oil down the western flank of Florida to the delicate coral reefs of the Keys. From the Florida Straits, the narrow passage between the Keys and Cuba, the oil could flow into the Gulf Stream, from which it could slather the beaches up the East Coast, the scientists believe.
“I think it is inevitable at this stage because we’re seeing it creep slowly toward the loop current,” said University of Miami oceanographer Nick Shay. “If this thing keeps going for two to three months, it’ll be catastrophic.”
But there are many unknowns, and the oil slick has been elusive and enigmatic. The oil by its nature is hard to peg. It’s not a single, coherent blob but rather an irregular, amoeba-shaped expanse that in some places forms a thin sheen on the water and in other locations is braided and stretched into tendrils of thick, orange-brown gunk.
A BP executive said Monday that the company is treating the oil at the gulf bottom with dispersant chemicals sprayed from a wand on a robotic submarine.
No one is sure how much oil is leaking. The Coast Guard initially said there was no leak, then said there was a leak of 1,000 barrels a day, then upped the estimate to 5,000 barrels.
Ian MacDonald, a professor of oceanography at Florida State University, has calculated the amount of oil based on satellite imagery and established models of oil dispersion and believes that the quantity is already greater than that dumped in Alaska by the Exxon Valdez in 1989. He estimated last week that 9 million gallons of oil are already in the water, compared with 10.8 million gallons in the Valdez disaster.
But he acknowledged that the real amount could be different. In any case, he said, the comparison to the Valdez spill is misguided, because the coastal gulf is far more economically significant than the sparsely populated coast of Alaska.
A bit of good news
Despite his bleak estimate of the spill, MacDonald said the rough weather has been a blessing. In heavy surf, the oil has been breaking up, and toxic volatiles in the oil have been evaporating.
“It chews up the oil; some of it sinks,” MacDonald said.
The good news ends there.
“What remains forms what’s called mousse, which is like chocolate mousse. It’s an emulsion, which is an emulsion of oil, air and water, in a thick, gelatinous layer, and that’s nasty stuff,” he said.
So far, efforts to stop the leaks from the well have failed.
“It’s really, really devastating,” said Greg McCormack, director of the Petroleum Extension Service at the University of Texas. “On the political front, are we going to be allowed to drill in the deep water again? That’s going to be more devastating to society than to the industry. We’re going to have much higher oil prices because of that.”
