Past oil spills have always been on the surface. So we tend to think of measuring their size that way (by overhead photography). However this oil gushing out of the deep and much not coming to the surface. Huge underwater plumes are present unseen and unmeasurable from above.
Scientists Find Giant Plumes of Oil Forming Under the Gulf. By Justin Gillis. New York Times.
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Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University. He was a Western Watersheds Project Board Member off and on for many years, and was also its President for several years. For a long time he produced Ralph Maughan’s Wolf Report. He was a founder of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. He and Jackie Johnson Maughan wrote three editions of “Hiking Idaho.” He also wrote “Beyond the Tetons” and “Backpacking Wyoming’s Teton and Washakie Wilderness.” He created and is the administrator of The Wildlife News.
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I just read that article. It now makes more sense why BP is trying to prevent people from studying the spill to determine how much is actually leaking out. Also appears to confirm the much higher rate of flow from the leaks. What a horrible, nightmarish tragedy this is, and just when I thought it couldn’t get much worse. This whole thing with the dispersants may turn out to be the real disaster.
I think that by the fall when the effects of the oil gusher have really been felt, it might eclipse other political issues.
I saw the republican senate minority leader on tv this morning say that making oil companies financially responsible for disasters like this would drive all “mom and pop” oil companies out of business.