A lot of air and countless pixels have been spent on finding the appropriate historical analogy for the BP Gulf disaster. This has resulted in unfortunate comparisons as we attempt to comb history for answers. Many on the right (and some on the left) have seen Hurricane Katrina and the Gulf disaster as somehow symmetrical. On the left, Valdez or Chernobyl have been referenced.
Another historical comparison was re-polished and published yesterday. In Biloxi's Sun-Herald, Glenn Garvin compares a recent major oil spill in the Gulf (1979's Ixtoc I spill) to BP's oil disaster.
MALAQUITE BEACH, Texas — The oil was everywhere, long black sheets of it, 15 inches thick in some places. Even if you stepped in what looked like a clean patch of sand, it quickly and gooily puddled around your feet. And Wes Tunnell, as he surveyed the mess, had only one bleak thought: “Oh, my God, this is horrible! It’s all gonna die!”
But it didn’t. Thirty-one years after the worst oil spill in North American history blanketed 150 miles of Texas beach, tourists noisily splash in the surf and turtles drag themselves into the dunes to lay eggs.
The first paragraph reveals the hand: we can and will recover! But is this too optimistic, too soon? Or is there something to learn here? The article continues:
But if the BP spill seems to be repeating one truth already demonstrated in the Ixtoc spill — that human technology is no match for a high-pressure undersea oil blowout — scientists are hoping it may eventually confirm another: that the environment has a stunning capacity to heal itself from man-made insults.
“The environment is amazingly resilient, more so than most people understand,” said Luis A. Soto, a deep-sea biologist with advanced degrees from Florida State University and the University of Miami who teaches at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. “To be honest, considering the magnitude of the spill, we thought the Ixtoc spill was going to have catastrophic effects for decades. … But within a couple of years almost everything was close to 100 percent normal again.”
The Ixtoc I rig was owned by the Mexican government and spilled into the Bay of Campeche in the Gulf of Mexico in 1979. The "leak" wasn't capped for 10 months and spewed 30,000 barrels of oil a day. By the end of the catastrophe, beaches were ruined, ecosystems deserted, and three million gallons of oil coated an area 1,110 square miles. Blow out preventers had failed -- a fire sank the rig.
The article contends that despite calls of long-term environmental disaster, the affected areas recovered in years. If the point of the article was to say -- "this too will pass!" -- who exactly said it wouldn't? Nature is incredibly resilient, but that doesn't mean accepting oil spills as just another day.
The articles end by saying the Texas coastline that was affected was helped by a major hurricane that acted to naturally dissipate the oil.
But after three months in which nothing went right, Texas had some good luck — or, to put it in a glass-half-empty way, Alabama and Mississippi had some bad luck.
Hurricane Frederic, while plowing into those two states, sent tides of 2-foot waves reeling into the Texas shoreline. Overnight, half the 3,900 tons of oil piled up on Texas beaches disappeared.
And human cleanup efforts began putting a dent in the rest.
I want to be hopeful, but ... Unfortunately, the problem with this analogy -- "BP might be Ixtoc" -- is in the numbers:
Ixtoc I
140,000,000 gallons spilled
1,110 square miles affected
Estuaries, wetlands and marshes largely protected
162 miles coastline impacted
BP Gulf Disaster
40,000,000 gallons spilled
2,500 - 9,100 square miles affected
Limited boom protection
125 miles of LA coastline impacted, oil still moving to beaches
BP is obviously still gushing and plumes are still moving. 100 million more gallons is certainly in the realm of reality before the wells are capped. Other differences exist: With Ixtoc, the U.S. had two months to prepare booms for the Texas coastline as the oil moved into U.S. territories. Also of note, the Mexican government drilled two relief wells for Ixtoc, but they failed to help cap the gusher for three months after their completion.
I am interested in analogies, but I don't find some amusing - like the Katrina comparison. That one's offensive, actually. What do you guys think of this comparison? Is the article too upbeat? Does the Ixtoc bode well for the Gulf? Is it terribly depressing that a near clone of this spill occurred 30 years ago in shallow water?
Damn it.