BP oil spill left Rhode Island-sized oily ring on
seafloor
Published time: October 28, 2014 16:47
The 2010 BP oil spill that resulted in 172 million gallons of oil
in the Gulf of Mexico has, four years later, left an oily “bathtub ring” about
the size of Rhode Island on the sea floor surrounding the site of the Macondo
well, according to new research.
About 10 million gallons of oil has collected on the sea floor
near the former site of the Deepwater Horizon rig and BP-operated Macondo well,
where the oil spewed from April 20 to July 15 in 2010, according to a study by
David Valentine, a University of California Santa Barbara geochemist, and
co-author Christopher Reddy, a marine chemist at Woods Hole Oceanographic
Institute.
The study, published Monday in ‘Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences,’ found that the oil spill has left several splotches in
the Macondo well area, some with more oil residue than the 1,200-square-mile “bathtub
ring.”
Valentine said though there are no chemical signature tests given
the oil has since degraded, the source of the oil is obvious.
"There's this sort of ring where you see around the Macondo
well where the concentrations are elevated,"Valentine said, according to AP.
He added that oil levels found inside the ring were as much as
10,000 times higher than outside the ring. A chemical ingredient of oil was
found on the sea floor, from two-thirds of a mile to a mile below the water’s
surface.
BP questioned the study’s findings, especially since the oil can
no longer be tested given its degraded state.
In an email to AP, spokesman Jason Ryan said, "the
authors failed to identify the source of the oil, leading them to grossly
overstate the amount of residual Macondo oil on the sea floor and the
geographic area in which it is found."
Though such chemical analysis is impossible at this point, study
authors Valentine and Reddy said other evidence point to the Deepwater Horizon
disaster: the depth of the oil, the area it encompasses, and the distance from
the Macondo well.
The study was praised by marine scientists Ed Overton, of
Louisiana State University, and Ian MacDonald, of Florida State University,
neither of whom were involved in its conclusions, according to AP.
Though the spill is more than four years old, scientists are still
measuring - and debating - the totalecological impact of
the BP spill. For now, Reddy said they believed their findings validated
earlier research that found deep water coral was coated with oil and damaged
from the spill.
The Deepwater Horizon explosion killed 11 people and polluted Gulf
waters that wash onto the shores of five US states as oil gushed from the
drilling rig for nearly three months before the flow was brought to a halt.
In all, prosecutors said over 4 million barrels of oil spilled
into the Gulf, making it the largest accident of its kind in petroleum industry
history. Around 16,000 miles of coastline were affected and, according to the
National Park Service, over 8,000 animals died as a result.
Louisiana Gov. Bobby
Jindal (Win McNamee / Getty Images / AFP)
In early
September, a federal judge ruled that BP had acted with gross
negligence before the spill, indicating that the corporation may have to pay
billions of dollars in fines.
US District Court Judge Carl Barbier also wrote in his ruling that
two other oil companies — Transocean and Halliburton — acted negligent as well,
but failed to find them as responsible as BP with regards to the spill.
Transocean owned the Deepwater Horizon rig, but drilling rights were leased to
BP; Halliburton was in charge of the “cementing” process on
the doomed drilling site.
The three companies, Barbier wrote, are "each liable
under general maritime law for the blowout, explosion and oil spill," but
the bulk of the blame — specifically 67 percent — will rest on BP. According to
Bloomberg News, BP may next face fines as high as $18 billion — the maximum
penalty under the Clean Water Act — and has already put aside $3.5 billion to
cover those costs.
Despite the ruling, energy companies can count on political allies
in states like Louisiana to defend their interests. For instance, in June,
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal signed into law legislation that rescued dozens of
oil and gas companies from a lawsuit over long-term damage done to the state’s
wetlands.
Experts
said the law may very well thwart future claims against energy
companies, including those against BP.
In a letter urging Jindal to veto the legislation, Louisiana
Attorney General Buddy Caldwell wrote that the bill included “very
broad and all-encompassing language” and “may have other
potential serious unintended consequences."
“No one can currently quantify or identify all of the causes of
action which will be swept away if this bill becomes law,” the letter warned
“In the coming years perhaps the proponents of the bill can tailor
legislation more narrowly drawn which does not portend such a broad and vague
attack on the abilities of the State, and most importantly, local governmental
entities to protect their citizens.”
Source - http://news360.com/article/263678314/#
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