New estimates from various teams of U.S. government scientists who are examining the Gulf Coast oil spill show the flow rate of the spill to be between 12,000 barrels (504,000 gallons) and 25,000 barrels (1.05 million gallons) per day, according to U.S. Geological Survey Director Marcia McNutt.
That's 12 to 25 times more than the amount of oil energy giant BP originally reported leaking into the Gulf of Mexico during the early days of the oil spill, and two-and-a-half to five times more than the revised estimate BP and government officials have been using since SkyTruth, a non-profit organization that uses remote sensing and digital mapping technology to evaluate environmental issues worldwide, challenged the original figure.
McNutt said the scientific teams' best estimate was that the damaged undersea oil well is spewing crude oil at a rate of 12,000 to 19,000 barrels (798,000 gallons) per day, but one of the three measurement methods the teams used showed a high-end rate of 25,000 barrels daily.
By any estimate, the Gulf Coast oil spill that started on April 20 when the BP Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling platform exploded and sank is already the largest oil spill in U.S. history and has eclipsed the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, which spilled 10.8 million gallons in Alaska's Prince William Sound.
If these new estimates are correct, and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill is growing by 12,000 to 25,000 barrels of crude oil every day, then an amount of oil equivalent to the entire Exxon Valdez oil spill is gushing into the Gulf of Mexico every two to three weeks.
Photo by John Moore/Getty Images
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