The surface area of the Gulf of Mexico is 1.5 million square kilometers, or
approximately 572,900 square miles. It’s average depth is approximately 1 mile.
This means it contains about 631 quadrillion gallons. That’s 631 with 15 zeros
after it.
Estimates of the volume of the Deep Horizon oil spill range from about 90
million gallons to a worst case of about 184 million gallons. That’s a worst
case estimate of 184 with 6 zeros after it.
This puts the total amount of oil into the Gulf from this spill at about
0.29 parts per billion.
EPA allowances for drinking water contaminants (from the EPA’s website):
Arsenic 10 parts per billion
Benzene 5 parts per billion
Mercury 2 parts per billion
Carbon tetrachloride 5 parts per billion
Cadmium 5 parts per billion
Lead 15 parts per billion
Cyanide 200 parts per billion
184 million gallons would cover 1 square mile to a depth of less than 10 inches.
A single supertanker may hold 133 million gallons.
Look at this another way:
A swimming pool 50 feet by 20 feet by 8 feet holds 59,884 gallons of water.
0.29 parts per billion is achieved by adding 0.004 cubic inches of oil. A drop
1/4 inch in diameter is approximately 0.006 cubic inches. Your suntan oil
pollutes our swimming pool much worse than Deep Horizon has polluted the Gulf!
Its true that, for now at least, the oil remains concentrated in some smaller
areas, meaning they are much more polluted locally. But the ocean will disperse
the oil, much of it will be consumed by microbial action, and its concentration
will dissipate.
Can we stop panicking and acting stupidly, and get back to work?
As the head head said: stop making sense!
Math is good.
You can reduce those figures considerably because close to a million of those four million barrels never got into the Gulf.
I did the same calculations in an older thread and came up with something like a single drop of crude in a 10,000 gallon pool. Still a vanishingly small number. Of course, its worse than that, yadda, yadda, but it still should give some perspective.
But, but, but, but. A bird or two has died. We must all stop using oil and go back to living on 2 acres of prairie land with only a hoe and rain to sustain our sustenance.
Sure seems some estuaries and oyster beds have been fouled up. This will impact sea food products since fish and shrimp reproduce by the shores some of which got BP oil.. No one is out there fishing like last year. Charter boats are idle. We'll be finding out more, positive and negative
So the bp guy early on who said “it’s a big ocean” was pretty close?