Photograph: © SAF – Coastal Care
Excerpts;
An oil spill that has been quietly leaking millions of barrels into the Gulf of Mexico has gone unplugged for so long that it now verges on becoming one of the worst offshore disasters in U.S. history.
Between 300 and 700 barrels of oil per day have been spewing from a site 12 miles off the Louisiana coast since 2004…
Read Full Article; The Washington Post (10-21-2018)
Federal records show steady stream of oil spills in gulf since 1964, Washington Post (07-24-2010)
The oil and gas industry’s offshore safety and environmental record in the Gulf of Mexico has become a key point of debate over future drilling, but that record has been far worse than is commonly portrayed by many industry leaders and lawmakers…
3,200 Gulf wells unplugged, unprotected lie abandoned beneath the Gulf of Mexico (04-20-2011)
More than 3,200 oil and gas wells classified as active lie abandoned beneath the Gulf of Mexico, with no cement plugging to help prevent leaks that could threaten the same waters fouled by last year’s BP spill. These wells likely pose an even greater environmental threat than the 27,000 wells in the Gulf that have been plugged and classified officially as “permanently abandoned” or “temporarily abandoned.”
Abandoned oil wells make Gulf of Mexico ‘environmental minefield’, Guardian UK (07-07-2010)
The Gulf of Mexico is packed with abandoned oil wells from a host of companies including BP, according to an investigation by Associated Press, which describes the area as “an environmental minefield that has been ignored for decades”.
Detail of a map showing geology, oil (in red) and gas (green) fields, in the Gulf of Mexico Region Illustration: U.S. Geological Survey US Geological Survey
