FRIDAY, MAY 28, 2010
KLMNO
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Gulf Coast Oil Spill
Estimates are revised upward for oil spill in gulf
oil spill continued from A1
icately calibrated, injection of heavy drilling mud into the blow- out preventer atop the wellhead. As the mud is pumped from ships at the surface, the hydrocarbons should be forced back down the well toward their source in a po- rous reservoir called the Macon- do field, about 21
⁄2
the floor of the gulf. It has not been smooth sailing.
After pumping mud for about nine hours on Wednesday, BP put the pumping on hold throughout the day Thursday while it pon- dered the initial results. The company resumed Thursday eve- ning. “Nothing has gone wrong or unanticipated,” Doug Suttles, BP’s chief operating officer, told reporters. He said engineers hope to improve on their initial performance by preceding a mud injection with a blast of rubber balls and other rough-textured materials — a “junk shot” — to clog the blowout preventer and force more mud down into the hole, rather than shooting it out of the leaks in the riser. “We did believe we did pump some mud down the well bore. We obviously pumped a lot of mud out the riser,” Suttles said. BP Managing Director Bob
Dudley likened the top kill to an “arm-wrestling match with two fairly equal-rated forces. Or tak- ing two fire hoses and driving them together, trying to over- come the other.” The well won’t be considered killed until the mud injection has been followed by cement to per- manently plug it — at which point the news would be carried by “the roar coming out of this building,” the deadpan Suttles said. Even if the well is plugged this
weekend, the spill already is of epic proportions. The Flow Rate Technical Group, a task force made up of scientists from gov- ernment and academia, has pro- duced preliminary estimates that 12,000 to 19,000 barrels a day have leaked into the gulf, U.S. Geological Survey Director Mar- cia McNutt said Thursday. The scale of the spill has been a
matter of furious debate and speculation. The Coast Guard ini- tially pegged the spill at 1,000 barrels a day. Then the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration used satellite im- ages to make an estimate of 5,000 barrels a day. Government officials and BP
executives repeated that figure for weeks, even as independent scientists came up with figures as high as 95,000 barrels a day. There are 42 gallons in a bar-
rel. Assuming that the leak began when the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig sank to the gulf bot- tom on April 22, and subtracting the amount of oil that BP said it has siphoned from the leaking pipe and pumped onto a barge, the new estimate would suggest that 17 million to 27 million gal- lons of oil have polluted the gulf. The 1989 Exxon Valdez spill, by comparison, put 11 million gal- lons of oil along more than 1,000 miles of Alaska’s coastline. Interior Department spokes-
man Frank Quimby said scien- tists used multiple techniques. One took video of the plume of oil escaping from the pipe and fed it through computer models. The result was 12,000 to 25,000 barrels a day.
Another technique relied on a
NASA plane that could differenti- ate oil from water on the gulf sur- face. That produced an estimate
Latest estimates say millions of gallons leaking into the gulf
miles below
BP said that the “top kill” of the leaking well had not worked — yet. An official said the oil company had made two attempts to pump high-volume mud into the well without sealing it. They began trying again late Thursday.
President Obama ordered a halt to operations at 33 deep-water drilling rigs for six months. Members of his administration also promised to step up oversight of offshore rigs, including closer looks at “blowout preventers” like the one that failed on the Deepwater Horizon.
Federal officials released a new estimate of the rate at which oil has been leaking from the well: between 12,000 and 19,000 barrels a day, more than twice the first estimate of 5,000 barrels a day. It appears that this spill has now surpassed the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989 and become the largest in U.S. history.
PUTTING THE SPILL IN PERSPECTIVE
According to numbers released Thursday, it appears that between 17 million and 27 million gallons of oil have leaked into the Gulf of Mexico. That’s the equivalent of 25 to 40 Olympic swimming pools, or enough to fill the reflecting pool on the Mall at least 2 1
⁄2
times.
It pales, however, in comparison with total U.S. oil usage. The American Petroleum Institute estimates the country uses 20 million barrels of oil every day — more than 30 times the
A9
WIN MCNAMEE/GETTY IMAGES
Between 12,000 and 19,000 barrels of oil a day are spilling into the Gulf of Mexico in areas such as Grand Isle, La., federal officials said.
cumulative amount of this spill.
IS ALL THAT MUD DANGEROUS?
Ed Overton, a professor at Louisiana
State University, said that the drilling mud seen billowing out of the leaking pipe does contain the heavy metal barium. But, he said, it’s not likely to
cause huge problems for marine life: It is likely to quickly settle out as a dust on the gulf floor. The only way that’s bad, he said, is for animals that
burrow into the mud there. “If you’ve got a burrow down there,” he said, “you’re not a happy camper. Meaning that you could be a dead camper.”
Beached oil
Oil company BP reported Thursday that approximately 30 acres of Louisiana marsh have been affected by the spill, while Gov. Bobby Jindal has indicated that oil has touched more than 101 miles of shoreline.
24
Houma
L O U I S I A N A LOUISIANA
Atchafalaya Bay
Oil impact
From ground survey
May 25
Heavy Moderate
Light and very light
From aerial surveys
April 10 to May 25
Composite of oil extent*
Staging area
Gulf of Mexico
• Area determined by combining overflight observations from April 10 to May 25. Amount of oil on surface varies from light to heavy.
SOURCES: NOAA, NESDIS, American Bird Conservancy, BP, U.S. Coast Guard
1
Larose Port Sulphur
Barataria Bay
Caillou Bay
Raccoon Island
Trinity Island
Terrebonne Bay
Whiskey Island
Timbalier Bay
Timbalier Bay Island
Approval has been granted to build a six-foot-high sand berm here as a temporary barrier.
Southwest Pass
Spill site approx. 65 miles from here
Area of D.C. for scale comparison
0 MILES
GENE THORP/THE WASHINGTON POST
20
Port
Grande Isle
Fourchon
Bastian Bay
East Bay
South Pass
Venice
Lake Pontchartrain
10
New Orleans
Shell Beach
Chandeleur Sound
Salvador Lake
23
Breton Sound
Breton Islands
Pass A Loutre
125 vessels were pulled off the water Thursday after those onboard complained of nausea and chest pains.
10 90
Borgne Lake
Brush Island
So far, air monitoring has not found alarmingly high levels of toxic chemicals, officials said. On Thursday, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers gave approval to a plan that sounded far- fetched in the spill’s early days: build more Louisiana. The corps approved part of a
state plan to build a line of six- foot-high barrier islands off the Louisiana coast, designed to block oil on the surface and un- der the water. In all, Jindal said, the Corps approved building 40 miles of the 100-mile barrier that Louisi- ana had proposed. The first move, he said, would be to build one smaller section as a proto- type. He said BP should be made to pay for the plan, which has been estimated to cost tens of millions of dollars. The oil industry did not wel- come Obama’s new moves on off- shore drilling. Bill Tanner, a spokesman for Shell Oil, said, “We respect and understand to- day’s decision in the context of the tragic spill in the Gulf of Mexico, but we remain confident in our drilling expertise, which is built upon a foundation of redun- dant safety systems and company global standards.” In Lafourche (“la-FOOSH”)
of 12,000 to 19,000 barrels a day. A third method relied on meas- urements from the insertion tube that siphoned oil from the end of the riser. That produced an esti- mate of 12,000 barrels a day. Also Thursday, scientists from
the University of South Florida reported the discovery in the gulf of a “plume” of dissolved oil that was six miles wide and up to 20 miles long. The plume extended from the surface down to a depth of 3,200 feet. The oil is entirely dissolved in the water, which appears clear,
USF professor David Hollander said. That seemed to confirm the fears of some scientists that, be- cause of the depth of the leak and the heavy use of chemical dis- persants, this spill was behaving differently than others. Instead of floating on top of the water, it may be moving beneath it. That could hamper contain-
ment efforts and would also be a problem for ecosystems deep un- der the gulf. There, scientists say, the oil could be absorbed by tiny animals and enter a food chain that builds to sportfish such as
red snapper. It might also glom on to deep coral formations. Oil has now hit 101 miles of
Louisiana coastline, state offi- cials said, mainly lapping up on state’s outer ring of uninhabited barrier islands: Whiskey Island, Raccoon Island, Isle Grand Terre. The beaches and marinas of Grand Isle — a rare beach in a re- gion of marshy coast, and a week- end destination for Cajuns and deepwater fishermen — are de- serted, except for those working on the spill. “We should have about 4,500,
5,000 people on the beach,” said Mayor Dave Camardelle at a news conference with Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) Thursday. “And it’s a ghost town.” Five of seven workers helping clean up oil in the Gulf of Mexico were released from the hospital Thursday after complaining of nausea, dizziness, and headaches the day before, prompting the Coast Guard to order all 125 boats working in the Breton Sound area to return to port. The incident has highlighted con- cerns about possible health risks.
Parish, a mosaic of bayous, lakes and marshland, oil has already penetrated some marshes. Char- lotte Randolph, the parish presi- dent, said she fears for the future of fishing in the area.
“If this destroys our water, then we can’t be who we were be- fore,” Randolph said. “The other industry here is oil and gas. We had a happy marriage before. And now the husband has really done something awful.”
achenbachj@washpost.com
Staff writers Rob Stein, Juliet Eilperin and Steven Mufson contributed to this report.
Halt in offshore drilling leaves McDonnell’s plans high and dry
by Anita Kumar
richmond — There will be no offshore rigs, no new oil industry jobs and no additional money for road and rail projects in Virginia after President Obama’s an- nouncement Thursday to halt off- shore drilling plans. The decision has left Gov. Rob-
ert F. McDonnell scrambling to find another source for transpor- tation funding and jobs during one of the worst economic down- turns in decades. McDonnell (R), who has made
offshore drilling one of his ad- ministration’s top priorities, has continued to support drilling even after the deadly April 20 ex- plosion in the Gulf of Mexico that created the worst oil spill in U.S. history. On Thursday, McDonnell said he understood, but disagreed, with Obama’s decision to cancel plans for proposed lease sales off the Virginia coast. “I do not believe outright can-
cellation was the only alterna- tive,’’ he said. “It is my hope that
the president’s action does not signal the end of offshore energy exploration and production off Virginia in the years ahead.” March 31, the day Obama an- nounced that Virginia would be one of the first states to drill off the East Coast, was one of the happiest for the young McDon- nell administration. Thursday was clearly one of the most dis- appointing, with glum staffers walking around Capitol Square. But Stephen J. Farnsworth, a political analyst at George Mason University, said Obama’s an- nouncement “saves the governor from himself.” Farnsworth said photos of the accident were making it more and more politically difficult to support drilling. “This is a face-saving way to al- low a delay,’’ he said. McDonnell has repeatedly said
that drilling off Virginia’s coast would create thousands of jobs and millions of dollars in tax rev- enue. He campaigned last year on
paying for road improvements in part with proceeds from oil and
MD.
270
D.C.
66
Annapolis
95
VIRGINIA
Richmond
64 95
N.C.
SOURCE: U.S. Department of the Interior
THE WASHINGTON POST
Norfolk
VA.
Proposed drilling area
DEL. MD.
Ocean City
Assateague I.
Baltimore N.J.
Proposed drilling area 50-mile buffer zone
Non-obstruction zone
(Area excluded to avoid conflicts with navigation)
0 MILES
Atlantic Ocean
50
Republicans at odds over raising taxes and other ways to generate money. The state’s transportation budget shortfall, in the billions of dollars, has led to thousands of lost jobs and hundreds of un- finished projects. McDonnell announced a
gas drilling. Congress would still need to pass a bill to allow Vir- ginia to receive royalties from off- shore drilling, as it did in 2006, when it allowed Gulf Coast states to begin taking home 37.5 percent of revenue. McDonnell estimated that $177 million each year from oil drilling could go to transportation start-
ing in 2013. But he had his critics. “I’ve said from the outset that the notion of potentially reserv- ing some future revenues from oil leases for transportation . . . would be very shortsighted,” Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.) said. Virginia has struggled over where to find money for infra- structure, with Democrats and
lengthy plan to pay for Virginia’s growing list of traffic woes with- out raising taxes — privatizing li- quor sales, adding tolls on In- terstates 85 and 95, and offshore oil drilling. In recent weeks, he has asked the federal government for permission to impose tolls on the southern reaches of Inter- state 95 and has created a com- mission to study selling the state’s 350 liquor stores. Del. David B. Albo (R-Fairfax), who has long tried to broker an agreement on transportation, said he thought drilling could bring in money for transporta- tion, though not enough to solve the problem. “It’s discouraging,” he said. “It
leaves us no money for roads.” Most Virginia leaders recon- sidered their support for drilling after the Gulf Coast accident.
Virginia’s senators, Warner
and James Webb, both Demo- crats who support drilling, said they agree that drilling should be delayed, as did the mayor of Vir- ginia Beach, the state’s largest city and one that relies heavily on tourism. Rep. James P. Moran Jr., a
Northern Virginia Democrat and chairman of the appropriations subcommittee for the interior and environment, said the deci- sion would help Virginia with en- vironmental concerns as well as with the Defense Department, which recently released a report showing that exploratory drilling off almost three-quarters of the shoreline is incompatible with military operations and training. “Our naval assets, including
the ongoing battle to keep a ma- jor aircraft carrier from being re- located to Florida, far outweigh the illusory benefits from dril- ling,” Moran said. Environmentalists cheered
Thursday’s decision and called on McDonnell to further embrace wind energy.
kumaranita@washpost.com
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