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Longest-running oil spill in history releasing more than 4,500 gallons per day
- PeterSmit 7y agoPaywall
- yellingdog 7y agohttp://archive.fo/04vtS http://archive.fo/04vtS
- bork1 7y agowhoa! This seems like an awesome tool to get around paywalls.
- because_of_you 7y agoYou using a PC? The link didn't work for me on my Android for whatever reason:( Maybe it's the app I am using or something.
- quasse 7y agoIt's really weird how, if there's one thing that a large majority of Americans seem to hate, it's forcing companies to take responsibility for negative externalities that they create by profiting off of something. There seems to be basically no limit to how much damage the "America is open for business!!!" cheerleaders will support as long as 1. Someone is making a profit off of it. 2. It's happening in someone else's backyard (This one is sometimes optional, see the entire state of Louisiana [1] or flammable tap water in Pennsylvania and NY [2]) [1] https://iaspub.epa.gov/triexplorer/release_geography?region=®IONINDICATOR=&p_view=USGO&trilib=TRIQ1&TAB_RPT=1&LINESPP=&sort=RELLBY&industry=ALL&FLD=RELLBY&FLD=TSFDSP&sort_fmt=2&TopN=56&STATE=All+states&COUNTY=All+counties&chemical=_ALL_&year=2017&report=&BGCOLOR=%23D0E0FF&FOREGCOLOR=black&FONT_FACE=arial&FONT_SIZE=10+pt&FONT_WIDTH=normal&FONT_STYLE=roman&FONT_WEIGHT=bold https://iaspub.epa.gov/triexplorer/release_geography?region=... [2] https://www.pnas.org/content/108/20/8172.abstract https://www.pnas.org/content/108/20/8172.abstract
- mogadsheu 7y agoI think the public backlash against BP was tremendous. The HBO documentary in 2016 was very popular, six years after the incident occurred.
- marricks 7y agoOften we have a “backlash” but they lead to no real consequences probably because we feel so disenfranchised. Once something bad happens the public kind of already knows there will be a fine but none of the board/shareholders will ever really be held responsible.
- gumby 7y agoTremendous? A congressman even apologized to BP for people saying they were unhappy with the company, and the company's fines had both no effect on their business and did not compensate for even the economic loss of the people in the area.
- mogadsheu 7y agoWeren’t there some $5B ordered for civil penalties? I worked in Houston just after the spill and heard BP was in shambles at the time.
- rbg246 7y agoI thought the opposite from outside the US - I thought the US lambasted (rightfully) BP which caused BP to almost go out of business - they had asset sales at the time to pay for the costs. There were pension liquidity fears at the time due to the costs that it needed to pay. BP provides a large percentage of dividend payments on the the London Stock Exchange which pension funds rely on for paying out pensions. The wikipedia page is quite clear on how much BP paid in damages and they were not insignificant - $42Billion had been paid into a trust fund. To say no effect is incorrect.
- sp332 7y ago"up to" 4,500 gallons per day. The two new estimates in the article are 9-47 barrels per day and 19-108 barrels per day. A total of 250-700 barrels of oil per day might be flowing into the Gulf from various sources, so this is a significant fraction but not a majority.
- bongobongo 7y agoEither way it's a hell of a lot more than the 2-4 barrels per day claimed by Taylor Energy Company.
- CGamesPlay 7y agoWithout changing units to make the numbers seem smaller: > "up to" 4,500 gallons per day. The two new estimates in the article are 378-1974 gallons per day and 798-4536 gallons per day. A total of 10.5k-29.4k gallons of oil per day might be flowing into the Gulf from various sources, so this is a significant fraction but not a majority.
- billysielu 7y agopay/privacy wall, why even bother posting this link...
- bork1 7y agoIf you press esc quickly after the text has loaded you can stop the pay/privacy wall from loading. It might take a couple of refreshes to get the timing right :)
- bigwheeler 7y agoI can’t find the iPhone escape key
- Fezzik 7y agoOn mobile you can quickly hit the X in the address bar as the page is loading, it accomplishes the same thing.
- wolfpwner 7y agoNice tip! I assume the paywall is loaded by javascript?
- cameronbrown 7y agoPeople hate ads, people hate paywalls. We've really got to just choose one and accept it.
- crisnoble 7y ago>[Taylor Energy Company] claim that only one drop of oil per minute is being released from a small area covered in mud, amounting to less than three gallons each day. .... 14 years later ... Somewhere between 1,000 and 71,000 gallons have been leaking per day. > Taylor Energy has disputed every outside assessment of oil flowing from the site. Welp hopefully now that there is proof, they will get to pay for their externalities. From http://www.taylorenergy.com/ http://www.taylorenergy.com/ >Taylor Energy Company LLC sold its oil and gas assets in 2008 and ceased all drilling and production operations. Taylor Energy exists today solely to respond to the MC-20 incident. Okay nevermind. Socialize the losses, concentrate the profits, the American dream.
- Ajedi32 7y agoSo the company basically went out of business. Sounds about right to me. What more could you possibly ask for?
- opportune 7y agoIt doesn't really seem fair that a company can return profits to its shareholders for many years while being environmentally negligent, then once it actually has to respond to environmental issues, it can just goes out of business. One, those profits are basically ill-gotten gains, and two, you are encouraging this kind of behavior by letting the people who received the profits keep them. I'm not sure how to implement this, especially in a way that's fair, but if the company is unable to cover the environmental damage itself I think those profits out to be paying for the damage before taxpayers.
- m463 7y agoI would mention there are a lot of natural oil leaks. A friend of mine living in Santa Barabara has said there's a lot of 100% all-natural tar on the beaches there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_Oil_Point_seep_field https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_Oil_Point_seep_field
- arrosenberg 7y agoAlso had one of the largest oil spills in history - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1969_Santa_Barbara_oil_spill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1969_Santa_Barbara_oil_spill and another one recently - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refugio_oil_spill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refugio_oil_spill A fair bit of that tar wound up there because of human activity.
- whymsicalburito 7y ago(Long time Santa Barbara resident) The tar that washes up on the beaches is natural and not from those spills. Also, if you need to get tar off your feet after a walk on the beach, baby oil works well :)
- arrosenberg 7y agoI went to the University. Baby oil was a necessity ;)
- sbov 7y agoFrom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_Oil_Point_seep_field https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_Oil_Point_seep_field 100 to 150 barrels worth of liquid petroleum per day. 36,500 to 54,750 per year. It leaks about as much as the 1969 oil spill every 2 years. Or about as much as the Refugio oil spill every month. I would assume the sudden influx of oil has a hugely adverse affect on wildlife, which still makes them problematic. And 2 years worth of leaks in 10 days sounds catastrophic to the local wildlife. But long term it doesn't seem like either of these spills would be a major contributor to the tar you find on beaches in the region today.
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- la_barba 7y agoLink to actual report page: https://coastalscience.noaa.gov/data_reports/an-integrated-assessment-of-oil-and-gas-release-into-the-marine-environment-at-the-former-taylor-energy-mc20-site/ https://coastalscience.noaa.gov/data_reports/an-integrated-a... PDF: https://cdn.coastalscience.noaa.gov/publication-attachments/nccos-tech-memos/NCCOS-TM-260_Mason_2019.pdf https://cdn.coastalscience.noaa.gov/publication-attachments/...
- jdlyga 7y agoEvery hour, hour after hour
- blotter_paper 7y agowork is never over.
- yeukhon 7y agoIf one day we run out of oil, someone would go back and ask “what if we stopped all the leaks and perhaps we could have two extra days.” I don’t understand and perhaps I missed it... it’s only 450 feet below. Why can’t anyone stop the leak?
- mulmen 7y agoIt’s not a question of if they can. It’s a question of if they want to. Fixing it would cost money and it’s cheaper to just leave it so here we are.
- vel0city 7y agoThe platform collapsed not just because of hurricane force winds, rain, and rough seas. The platform mainly collapsed because the mud it was put down on gave way into an underwater mudslide. An earlier assessment recommended continued monitoring and evaluation of the site as attempting to mess with the site might only make things worse until we know what to do about it. As you can see from the ranges given in even this most recent report, estimates on oil flow rate out of what is left of the well is all over the place as its hard to really tell what is brewing under all the mud. Essentially, poking the mud pile might release even more of a catastrophe than what there is currently going on. This new study gives us more insight that the leak rate is probably either on the high side of initial estimates or much higher than what was previously thought. https://mc20response.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Taylor-Energy-CERA-Report.pdf https://mc20response.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Taylor-E... As a note this is a report hosted by mc20response.com, which is essentially all Taylor Energy is today. It has data reported from a few different government agencies, and overall this trust is pretty much just a pile of money to go towards cleaning up the mess. Feel free to take its findings with however big of a grain of salt as you'd like.
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- saalweachter 7y agoHere's your bimonthly reminder that fossil fuels also create toxic waste that lasts generations and affects huge swaths of the globe.
- anotherthro313 7y agoDon't worry, there will be a lot of profit to be had, the environment doesn't matter.