BP Oil Spill Leaves a 22-Mile Plume Migrating in Gulf of Mexico
Admiral Thad Allen
Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg
The company may not permanently plug the well until after the Sept. 6 U.S. Labor Day holiday because it must replace the stack of valves atop it to avoid any further oil leaks, National Incident Commander Thad Allen said.
The company may not permanently plug the well until after the Sept. 6 U.S. Labor Day holiday because it must replace the stack of valves atop it to avoid any further oil leaks, National Incident Commander Thad Allen said. Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg
BP Plc’s oil spill created an underwater plume of degrading crude more than 22 miles (35- kilometers) long that’s migrating across the Gulf of Mexico, according to scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
The plume, containing chemicals such as benzene, toluene and ethylbenzene, will remain in deep-sea waters for months as microbes degrade it “relatively slowly,” the research team from the Falmouth, Massachusetts-based institution said in a report released today.
“The hydrocarbons could persist for some time,” Benjamin Van Mooy, a principal investigator on the team, said in a press release. “So it is possible that oil could be transported considerable distances from the well before being degraded.”
While the scientists couldn’t specify how toxic the plume might be, they determined it contained no “dead zones,” or regions with so little oxygen that almost no marine animals could survive.
The team, led by Richard Camilli, detected the subsurface layer of oil in late May and followed up with 10-days of sampling from June 19 to June 28, using an underwater vehicle and a device lowered by cable to collect the samples.
Scientists don’t know the state of the plume since they completed the June cruise, Camilli said during a conference call with reporters today. The team was unable to track it further because Hurricane Alex interrupted them.
BP’s Macondo well spilled about 4.9 million barrels of oil, enough to fill about 312 Olympic-sized swimming pools, after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded 40 miles (64 kilometers) off the coast of Louisiana on April 20.
Government Oil Estimates
The Obama administration’s Aug. 4 report indicated that almost three-fourths of the crude that leaked has disappeared or soon will be eaten by bacteria. Jane Lubchenco, administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, has said at least half of the oil released is now “completely gone.”
BP capped the well on July 15 to stop the source of the largest accidental offshore oil spill. The company may not permanently plug the well until after the Sept. 6 U.S. Labor Day holiday because it must replace the stack of valves atop it to avoid any further oil leaks, National Incident Commander Thad Allen said today.
To complete the final kill, BP will pump mud and cement through a relief well into the bottom of Macondo. The company, based in London, previously expected to have killed the well by the middle of this month.
To contact the reporter on this story: Katarzyna Klimasinska in Houston at kklimasinska@bloomberg.net.
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