Today’s online Wall Street Journal (U.S. News) quotes UCSB Geography’s Keith Clarke in an article titled “Oil Spills Into Gulf After Rig Disaster.” Last week’s accident on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico resulted in the loss of 11 crew members and an oil spill that threatens to become a major ecological disaster for the beaches, barrier islands, and wetlands of the Louisiana coast.
The April 20 explosion aboard the semi-submersible Transocean Deepwater Horizon rig operated by British Petroleum caused it to capsize and sink on April 22, and it is estimated that the equivalent of 1,000 barrels of crude oil per day is leaking from the damaged well cap which is nearly a mile below the ocean surface. The Wall Street Journal states: “University of California Santa Barbara Prof. Keith Clarke, who studied a 1969 oil spill off the Southern California coast, said: ‘Worst-case scenario would be loss of sea life, especially sea birds and marine mammals. Fishing could be significantly impacted. A great deal depends on how long the site leaks.’”
The article goes on to say that attempts are being made to skim off the oil slick, that about a third of the world’s supply of oil dispersant is available for use, that remote-controlled submarines are being used in an effort to clamp off the well, and that an intercept well may be needed. But all of this takes time, and, as Professor Clarke pointed out, “a great deal depends on how long the site leaks.” The complete article can be found here.
Editor’s note: An article that Dr. Clarke wrote in conjunction with grad student Jeff Hemphill about the Santa Barbara oil spill of 1969 (The Santa Barbara Oil Spill: A Retrospective) can be found here.
