In same area as the BP spill! – The huge BP oil spill off the coast of Florida has focused our minds on problems with offshore drilling, but it turns out that oil leaks into the Gulf regularly from other sources. Satellite images reveal that there are TWO other offshore drilling rigs that are leaking oil in that vicinity.
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UPDATE: BP stops oil spill! – A failed cement plug probably caused the blowout which led to the huge oil spill in the Gulf. And guess whose company installed the cement plug? It was a company led by a member of the extremely pro-business Bush administration, namely Dick Cheney’s company Halliburton.
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How to settle this controversy – Before we can start cleaning up the oil spill, we have to figure out how big it is, and this has been a problem since BP Oil naturally wants it to be a small as possible, while the people actually doing the clean up need to figure out how big the job is. It turns out that the dangerous greenhouse gas methane can help us out here.
Measuring the methane in the water could give a better idea of how much oil has actually spilled into the Gulf of Mexico. The oil rig pipe could be pumping as much as 100,000 barrels per day into the gulf, although many scientists think the amount may be closer to 5,000.
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Has dangers you may not suspect – On May 17, in Venice, Louisiana, fishermen and local residents called a press conference to complain about fumes that are sickening them when the wind is blowing off Gulf of Mexico waters polluted by the British Petroleum oil spill. Oil washing ashore and the chemicals used in the clean up may pose a health risk for those who have respiratory diseases. Local residents are already complaining about symptoms, including headaches, nosebleeds, asthma attacks, cough, nausea, and vomiting, and those who had been out on the water said the situation was worse there. Can science solve this problem before it’s too late?
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