ALL DEPENDS on the wind. Just as Ireland’s travellers anxiously await news of the shifting winds, so too with the coastal communities of the Gulf of Mexico. Oil still gushes unchecked from 1,500 metres beneath the sea since the huge Deepwater Horizon rig sank into the gulf on April 20th. To date, however, winds have kept the enormous slick off shore. Although the capping of one of the three oil pipe breaches by BP and the window of fairer weather have raised some hopes, the potential for disaster remains.
If the slick moves west, it could yet close the huge Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, the offloading point for many of the largest tankers that deliver foreign oil to US refineries, as well as production at numerous other offshore wells. If it travels south and west along the Florida coast, carried along by the “loop current” of the gulf, a powerful and deep conveyor belt, it threatens devastation on the vulnerable ecologies of the coral reefs of the Keys and the shrinking marshes of the Everglades. Vital fisheries and pristine beaches, and the tourist trade that depends on them, are also at risk.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has estimated the well is spewing some 5,000 barrels of oil a day. At that rate, the spill would exceed Alaska’s 1989 Exxon Valdez accident by the third week of June. And long before it reaches the shore the oil is already causing huge damage. Some 40 per cent of America’s fish catch comes out of the gulf, and its deeper water harbours 10 species of threatened sharks, six of endangered turtles, manatees, whales and innumerable fish. Christopher Mann of the Pew Environment Group, warns that “the iconic images of oiled seabirds are just the tip of the iceberg, because oil spills affect life up and down the food chain”.
With possibly worse to come, the costs are already running to billions of dollars since the Deepwater Horizon, owned by Transocean and leased by BP, went down. In Congress many legislators see the spill as the environmental equivalent of the subprime crisis and have rolled out emergency legislation to raise massively the cap on damage awards against polluters.
BP, already facing some 20 lawsuits, could eventually be $10 billion out of pocket. The spill has also sharply increased pressure on President Obama to abandon recently announced plans for an easing of a moratorium on offshore drilling. Finding a proper balance between the needs of the economy and the environment has just been made a lot harder.