At worst, oil spewed already could fill 102 gyms

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At worst, oil spewed already could fill 102 gyms




AP – A May 17, 2010 satellite image provided by NASA shows a large patch of oil visible near the site of the …

• Slideshow:Animals suffer after oil spill
• Play Video Video:Oil Spill Forecast CBS4 Miami

By SETH BORENSTEIN and GREG BLUESTEIN, Associated Press Writers Seth Borenstein And Greg Bluestein, Associated Press Writers – Fri May 21, 6:12 am ET
COVINGTON, La. – Drip by drip, day by day, the oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico is adding up to mind-boggling numbers.
Using worst case scenarios calculated by scientists, a month's worth of leaking oil could fill enough gallon milk jugs to stretch more than 11,300 miles. That's more than the distance from New York to Buenos Aires, Argentina, and back. That's just shy of 130 million gallons.
If the government's best case scenario is used — and only 5.25 million gallons have spilled — those milk jugs would cover a bit more than a roundtrip between New York and Washington. But the government is revising that number, with a team of scientists working around the clock to come up with a more realistic and likely higher figure.

Click image to see a satellite chronology of the oil slick's creep

Reuters​

Here's another way to think of just how much oil has gushed out since April 20: At worst, it's enough to fill 102 school gymnasiums to the ceiling with oil.
That's nothing compared to the vast expanse of the Gulf of Mexico, where there are 643 quadrillion gallons. Even under the worst case scenario, the Gulf has five billion drops of water for every drop of oil. And the mighty Mississippi River pours 3.3 million gallons of new water into Gulf every second.
Under the rosiest scenario, little more than four gyms would be filled. That's how the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration visualizes oil spill volumes on one of its websites.
At worst, the amount of oil that has already spilled is a dozen times more than the Exxon Valdez disaster. At best, it's only half as bad. Realistically, it's probably somewhere in that huge middle in between.
No matter what, it already is way too much oil for the delicate parts of the Gulf ecosystem, said Darryl Felder, a biologist at the University of Louisiana Lafayette.

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100521/ap_on_re_us/us_gulf_spill_how_big

 

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BP oil spill reaches delicate wetlands of Louisiana

Local reports described heavy sheets of oil clogging marshes in Mississippi delta that provide haven for migratory birds

• Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent
• guardian.co.uk, Friday 21 May 2010 18.52 BST
• Article history

Wildlife under serious threat as thick oil reaches coastal sanctuaries in Louisiana. Link to this video Thick sheets of crude oil spread through the delicate wetlands of Louisiana today, as the BP oil spill continued to threaten the American coastline.
Local reports described heavy sheets of oil the consistency of latex paint clogging the marshes in the Mississippi delta that provide a haven for migratory birds, and buffer the shore from Gulf hurricanes.
"This is what everyone wanted to avoid, because the wetlands are the nursery for everything that swims or crawls in the Gulf of Mexico," said John Hocevar, oceans campaigner for Greenpeace. "Once the oil gets stuck in there we are pretty much stuck with it."
The sightings of heavy crude over the last 24 hours were seen as a far more serious threat to nesting birds, spawning fish and endangered sea turtles than the scattered tar balls and light sheen spotted earlier on the shoreline. "Twenty-four miles of Plaquemines parish is destroyed. Everything in it is dead," Billy Nungesser, head of the parish in southern Louisiana, told MSNBC after a tour of the marshes.
Anger has grown at BP and the government for failing to anticipate and contain the disaster, a month after the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon. Louisiana's Republican governor, Bobby Jindal, has warned for days that the thousands of miles of boom deployed by BP were too flimsy to keep back the oil during bad weather, and that the government needed to build sand barriers.
Florida could be next, with oil now caught up in the powerful Loop Current. Alabama and Mississippi have also been affected by the spill.
In Washington, members of Congress have accused BP and the administration of covering up the scale of the disaster threatening the shoreline as well as the deep waters of the Gulf.
[video]http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/video/2010/may/21/gulf-oil-spill-louisiana-wildlife-video[/video]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/may/21/bp-oil-spill-wetlands-louisiana