Leaking Oil Rig Threatens Disaster In The Gulf of Mexico

First the Great Barrier Reef, now the Gulf of Mexico - barely two weeks later, we're on the brink of another major oil spill. In Australia, disaster was narrowly averted. Not this time.

Let's start at the beginning.

On Tuesday night, an oil platform 50 miles off the coast of New Orleans burst into flames. It burned for a day and a half before sinking into the sea early on Thursday, raising fears about the possibility of a major oil leak from the well below. Already, a 1-by-5 mile oil slick haloed the platform’s smoldering remains.

The mobile drilling rig was owned by Transocean, the world's largest offshore drilling contractor, and leased by energy giant BP. On Thursday, neither company had a clue whether thousands of gallons of oil were being pumped into the ocean floor.

"It certainly has the potential to be a major spill," said BP’s Vice President David Rainey at the time. Fearing catastrophe, BP dispatched a fleet of 30 vessels to skim oil off the ocean’s surface.

Incidentally, it was a major spill off the coast of California in 1969 that first sparked opposition to offshore drilling and led to the banning of the technology from most of the nation’s coasts. So much for Big Oil’s insistence that these leaks are ancient history.

Using a robot equipped with camera and sonar, the Coast Guard was able to scan the deep sea floor around the ruined platform. “It does not appear that oil is emanating from the hole,” a Coast Guard official said on Friday.

He spoke too soon. New Orleans, we have a problem.

It is now clear that the riser - the huge pipe that connected the rig to the seabed - is leaking in two sections. These are currently resting on the ocean floor, pumping crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico to the tune of 42,000 gallons a day. (For reference, the 1989 Exxon-Valdez spill topped 11 million gallons.)

Meanwhile, the oil slick on the surface has fanned out to a 30-by-30 mile area. (Click here for a map of the spread.)

Due to high winds and choppy waters, BP's fleet was unable to continue cleaning up the slick on Saturday and most of Sunday. They've resumed their skimming, and airplanes are spraying chemical dispersants.
The patch is moving north, although officials are saying the it should remain at least 30 miles offshore for the next three days. Coastal states are already taking precautions.

There are three options on the table for stopping the leaks. First, the Coast Guard could use robots to turn off the faucet - the riser has a 450-ton valve at its base. If successful, this could take two days. Second, a couple of oil platforms could dig relief wells nearby, which would kick up enough mud and concrete to hopefully bury the leaks. This one could take two to three months. The third option is to catch the oil in a dome as it comes to the surface to buy time for option two. This has never been tried in deep water.

The environmental fallout is as yet unclear. No dead animals have been sighted, but this is just a matter of time. The bottom line: the more oil leaks, the more damage is done to the Gulf's, and eventually the Coast's, species and ecosystems. Unlike all our other looming environmental crises, this one really is in the hands of a couple hundred individuals.

The human cost, though, is clear as day: Of the 126 people on board the rig at the time of the explosion, seventeen are injured, with four in critical condition. Tragically, 11 men are still missing and presumed dead. The Coast Guard called off their search for them on Friday.

Nobody knows why the blast occurred. Stay tuned.

Photo credit: Coast Guard