BP oil spill likely to pass the Lakeview Gusher as the worst ever

The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico 2010 is being compared to the Lakeview Gusher of 1910. As the BP oil spill gushes for the 50th straight day, its sheer volume of toxic pollution is drawing comparisons to the Lakeview Gusher, a California calamity known as the worst oil spill in U.S. history 100 years ago. A century hence, the undersea gusher is overwhelming an oil spill cap on the oil spill live feed, which shows thousands of barrels a day still flowing to the sea.

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The Lakeview Gusher disaster

The Lakeview Gusher began when an oil well blew out near Maricopa, Calif. in March 1910 The Pasadena Star-News reports that 9 million barrels—378 million gallons of oil—was spilled in 18 months by the Lakeview Gusher. The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico 2010 may have dumped up to 122 million gallons in 50 days. Skeptical experts say that figure is far too low. The Lakeview Gusher blowout flowed at about 48,000 barrels a day. The daily output of the BP oil spill has been estimated as high as 72,000 barrels (3 million gallons) a day.

A sea of oil on land

Despite its spectacular blow-out, the Lakeview Gusher ended up as the most successful well ever in California.When the disaster started 18,000 barrels a day spilled into the ground. Peak flow was estimated at 90,000 barrels a day. A river of crude running downhill from the well site formed a 60-acre lake of oil.So much oil was recovered from the lake that William Rintoul in his book, “Drilling Through Time,” said it drove down the price of oil in 1910.

Oil spill live feed defies estimates

The oil spill cap, BP’s latest effort to control the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico 2010, appears on the oil spill live feed (see below) to be overwhelmed by the raging gusher coming from the ruptured well. BP claims the oil spill cap is a step forward in controlling the leak, but MSNBC reports that scientists viewing the oil spill live feed disagree. The oil spill cap collected 14,800 barrels of oil on Monday, BP officials said. Ira Leifer, a member of the Flow Rate Technical Group, a national panel of scientists and engineers tasked with determining the spill size, told MSNBC that the well may be gushing as much as 100,000 barrels a day.

Submerged oil plumes create dead zones

Deep in the gulf, underwater plumes are traced by scientists who told the New York Times the infusion of oil and gas threatening marine life is unprecedented in human history. For two weeks researchers cruised the gulf, tracking one underwater plumes as large as 15 miles wide, 3 miles long and 600 feet thick, the Times said. The plume’s core is 1,100 to 1,300 meters below the surface. Microorganisms consuming oxygen out of the water as they break down the oil are creating a dead zone devoid of any marine life.

Citations

pasadenastarnews.com

msnbc.msn.com

www.nytimes.com