Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

SUN EDITORIAL:

The oil spill worsens

Underwater plumes add to ecological disaster that should never have happened

Researchers this week announced they have found plumes of oil floating under the surface of the Gulf of Mexico miles from where the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig sank. One study found oil more than 160 miles away from the leaking well. The research, which found oil hundreds of feet under the surface, comes just days after BP CEO Tony Hayward denied there were plumes.

Doug Suttles, chief operating officer of BP’s exploration and production company, said this could be a matter of “how you define what a plume is.” He and his company have tried to downplay the significance of the findings. Suttles argued there hadn’t been any “large concentrations” of oil found underwater.

Marine biologists acknowledge the plumes have been diluted in the massive Gulf of Mexico, but Jane Lubchenco, chief of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told The New York Times, “That does not mean it’s unimportant — far from it.”

“The total amount of oil out there is likely very large, and we have yet to understand the full impact of all that hydrocarbon on the Gulf ecosystem,” Lubchenco said.

As the Times reported this week, bacteria are breaking down the hydrocarbons in the plumes, which go hundreds of feet deep, and that has caused oxygen levels in the water to drop to the point it is creating “dead zones” where no marine life can exist.

What is particularly frustrating about this situation is that BP didn’t take the possibility of an accident seriously. The Associated Press reported this week that BP’s disaster response plan for the Gulf of Mexico contained inaccurate information and out-of-date emergency contacts. One marine life expert it listed had died years before the report was written. The response plan also minimized the potential damage. The worst-case scenario presented in the plan was 10 times greater than what has been estimated for the current oil spill, yet the report maintained that damage would be minor.

That seems tragically laughable now, but the oil industry believed its own reputation — it bragged of what it said was a long safety record on oil rigs. U.S. regulators went along with the industry. For example, in 2002 a researcher hired by the U.S. Minerals Management Service recommended that more equipment be added to deep sea blowout preventers, which are supposed to stop leaks in an emergency. The service declined to take action. The researcher, Per Holand, told The Wall Street Journal that was not a surprise because it would cost more money and some older rigs probably wouldn’t be able to carry the extra gear.

Unfortunately, the lack of prevention has left the nation in an untenable situation. Oil continues to leak into the Gulf and could do so until BP is able to finish drilling relief wells later this summer, meaning the Gulf will continue to be fouled for some time to come.

The environmental damage, which also translates into economic damage along the Gulf Coast, is intolerable. As the cleanup continues, the federal government should make sure that companies are taking precautions on other drilling projects so something like this never happens again.

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