The LA Times, today, has an article about Skytruth. Skytruth is a small nonprofit group that has been monitoring the oil spill. They were the first to point out that the spill was much bigger than the initial 1000 barrels estimate given by BP and the government. That sent BP and the government scrambling to come up with the 5000 barrel estimate.
As stated in the LA Times article, "Saturday, the group updated its analysis to estimate that the slick contained more than 11.1 million gallons of oil, which would make it the largest oil spill in American history. John Amos, the group's president, also revised the estimate of the rate of oil leaking to 25,000 barrels a day, saying it was a "rock bottom" figure."
25,000 barrels per day is 1,050,000 gallons per day. That's right, over 1 MILLION GALLONS PER DAY!
That's 25 times the initial estimate, and there is no end in sight.
With all the resources that a large international corporation, British Petroleum, and with all the resources of the federal government, why does it take a " tiny nonprofit group with one paid staffer in a one-room office in a small West Virginia town" to figure out how much oil is leaking?
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This really sucks really badly. But just to show how screwed up the dialog in this country right now, I am betting that Republicans will find a way to ignore this or somehow blame President Obama and the Democrats. Rush Limbaugh is already out there with trial balloons. Certainly, greedy capitalists who require instant gratification aren't to blame. Neither is years of lax government regulation and oversight during the Bush years.
ReplyDeleteFu*king Democrats. The volcano in Iceland was probably their fault as well.
Obama must retract his advocacy of off shore drilling.
ReplyDeleteHe caved into the oil Corps. Now he must admit he made a mistake, and stop this insanity.
Bush didn't go to Texas City or visit Alaska after the oil spills there but Obama is of course being criticized for not flying down there within 8 hours. Bastards.
ReplyDeleteThanks for this. Am putting it on my FB.
Oh, I'll be they had a better idea of how much was spilling but didn't want to "alarm" the public. I hope President Obama takes a very close look at the evidence of drilling in depths so great. At the very least drilling in much shallower waters would give the ability to cap the well. No more "drill, baby, drill".
ReplyDeleteOH SHIT! Thats a lot of "oops"
ReplyDelete