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This oil slick is larger than the state of West Virginia. "Drill baby drill," indeed.

• Groxx 17y ago
  How do you figure? On Friday, it was listed as being 3,850 square miles[1]. West Virginia has an area of 24,230 square miles[2]. [1] http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/05/01/gulf-oil-slick-triples-size-rough-seas-thwart-cleanup/ http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/05/01/gulf-oil-slick-triples-... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Virginia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Virginia
  • anigbrowl 17y ago
    Correct - but it does appear to be growing significantly - presumably the outrush is further damaging the pipeline. As it will keep leaking until pressure can be relieved, unlike the necessarily limited spillage from a tanker ship, it wouldn't surprise me if the WV comparison become true by Monday :-/ This is an epic environmental disaster. A similar marine rig spill in Australia^ last year took two months to alleviate by drilling a relief well and pumping mud into it; as with all drilling, several attempts are usually necessary to hit a suitably high-pressure part of the field. And the largest estimate for the output of the Montara spill was only 2000 barrels/day; this one is thought to be leaking between 3-5000b/d (1 barrel/~40 gallons). And that spill was considerably farther from shore, with a continental shelf limiting the amount of oil that reached south-east Indonesia. The Mississippi Delta, on the other hand...I don't like to think about the damage. ^ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montara_oil_spill http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montara_oil_spill
    • Groxx 17y ago
      Definitely not disagreeing on the epic, just on scale :) And didn't know most of that, thanks for the info (haven't followed this spill very closely).
  • _pius 17y ago
    Apologies, I heard that claim on the news in passing ... perhaps it was a projection and I missed that bit.