There is an ongoing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that has been leaching oil since September 2004 when it was hit by a sea floor mudslide triggered by Hurricane Ivan. The site is being referred to as “Platform 23051” because this is the name of the rig that serviced the area. Despite attempts to plug the leak with cement in 2011 it is still leaking oil. The chronic oil slick around the site is as much as 20 miles long. An LLC named Taylor Energy is the company that unsuccessfully tried to plug the leak with a leased drill rig called the Ocean Saratoga. Satellite data and over flights have consistently contradicted Taylor's reports which appears to be significantly under reporting the amount of oil seeping from the area.
An analysis by SkyTruth suggests that the total spill from the Taylor site may have exceeded 1 million gallons as of February 2012.
The underreporting is corroborated by the satellite experts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The problem persists in 2013, as evidenced by their observations on June 1 at 9:00 a.m., Taylor reported a slick 200 feet wide and 6.5 miles long while the NOAA reported A slick one mile wide and 20.2 miles long on a satellite image taken at 11:45 a.m. That amounts to at least 13,800 gallons of oil while the federal government has publicly stated that the leaking wells cumulatively spill only about 14 gallons per day.
We may never plug these leaks and oil may continue to flow from the sea floor until the reservoir effectively dry.
© 2013, Richard Matthews. All rights reserved.
oil, fossil fuels, hydrocarbons, petrochemicals, dirty, destructive, harmful, polluting, old energy, deadly, environment, climate change, global warming, green house gases, GHGs, emissions, carbon, pollution,
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