from Hacker News

14-year-long oil spill in Gulf of Mexico may be worst in U.S. history

by mitchelldeacon9 on 10/22/18, 6:53 PM with 60 comments

• by kbutler on 10/22/18, 11:51 PM

  Yes, oil in water is bad. But there's no scale - how does this 100, 300, or 700 barrels per day compare to natural seeps?

  "In the Gulf of Mexico, there are more than 600 natural oil seeps that leak between one and five million barrels of oil per year, equivalent to roughly 80,000 to 200,000 tonnes." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_seep with reference)

  I think we really need to figure out where all this oil goes.

  For another yardstick, deepwater horizon was estimated at 210 million barrels https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill.

  Even if it is 1000 barrels per day, Taylor has a while to go (575 years...)

• by state_less on 10/22/18, 9:08 PM

  We should charge oil companies an extra environmental tax and use it to pay for the cleanup. It should increase the price of oil, something more inline with the actual cost. The earth is our only home we cannot afford to f—k it up.

• by ansible on 10/22/18, 8:38 PM

  I'm as disappointed in the Coast Guard as anyone in the story. I also don't understand why they were monitoring the spill instead of the EPA.

• by TheSpiceIsLife on 10/22/18, 9:57 PM

  I had no idea there are over 3000 active oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico!

• by trumped on 10/22/18, 10:19 PM

  The BP oil spill released more total oil in just a few months, it was a real disaster (estimated @ 4.9 million barrels: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill#Vo...). And the dispersants that they used to hide/sink some of the spill were even more toxic then the oil itself.

• by forkLding on 10/22/18, 11:22 PM

  Any fish that come from that area? Slightly sketched out about the fish I'm eating now.

• by nickthemagicman on 10/22/18, 8:29 PM

  Man, I live here and feel bad for the people of Louisiana. The gulf is turning into a giant wasteland/superfund site. Such a corrupt state.

• by king_phil on 10/22/18, 7:48 PM

  Paywall. What does the article say?