Gulf Oil Spill: University Study Contradicts Government Estimates, Up To 79% Of Oil Could Remain

A group of scientists say that most of that BP oil the government claimed was gone from the Gulf of Mexico is actually still there.

The scientists believe that roughly three-quarters of the oil (70% to 79%) still lurks under the surface. The research team, affiliated with the University of Georgia, said that it is a misinterpretation of data to claim that oil that has dissolved is actually gone or harmless. The report was based on an analysis of federal estimates, but the Wall Street Journal notes that it hasn't been published or peer-reviewed yet.

Charles Hopkinson, who helped lead the investigation, claims "the oil is still out there, and it will likely take years to completely degrade." The UGA marine sciences professor, and director of the Georgia Sea Grant, added, "We are still far from a complete understanding of what its impacts are."

Earlier this month, federal scientists said that only about a quarter of the oil remained and the rest was either removed, dissolved or dispersed.

Whether a glass is one-quarter full or one-quarter empty isn't exactly a matter of perspective. Why the discrepancy? According to a news release from UGA:

Hopkinson notes that the reports arrive at different conclusions largely because the Sea Grant and UGA scientists estimate that the vast majority of the oil classified as dispersed, dissolved or residual is still present, whereas the NIC report has been interpreted to suggest that only the "residual" form of oil is still present.

Hopkinson said that his group also estimated how much of the oil could have evaporated, degraded or weathered as of the date of the report. Using a range of reasonable evaporation and degradation estimates, the group calculated that 70-79 percent of oil spilled into the Gulf still remains. The group showed that it was impossible for all the dissolved oil to have evaporated because only oil at the surface of the ocean can evaporate into the atmosphere and large plumes of oil are trapped in deep water.

While both reports are optimistic that the oil will continue to break down, neither accounts for hydrocarbon gasses like methane. "That's a gaping hole [in the reports]," admitted one of the researchers.

Click here for the full UGA report (PDF).

Comments

[toldyeso]

11:56 AM on 10/07/2010

kudos for having the courage and honesty to highlight this disgraceful dishonesty.

every time i would come on this site in the spring and early summer and point out that NOAA and other sources had Obama admin estimates at 10% of what most likely were the real oil numbers being released - members of Obamas typing army would come here and scream at people like me and say that we were "teabaggers" and "liars".

The same thing has happened when we came here more recently to point out that the administration is lying on how much oil was cleaned up or "evaporated".

Im no repub - im a lifelong dem who has worked on enviro issues for close to two decades in DC.

This is a horror and if it was the Bush admin doing this - everyone here would rightly be calling for blood...

and who took more money from BP than any other politician ever? Obama.

and who gave a enviro waiver to BP for all their offshore wells in the Gulf? Obama.

The people who are willing to defend Obama for these indefensible lies are not being good to the long term interests of our planet, nation or the Democratic party.

These same people called us liars back during the 2008 primaries when we tried to point out that Obama was taking record dollars from oil company and big coal execs ...

seems we were right on that too....

So who are the "liar

[toldyeso]

11:56 AM on 10/07/2010

true or false - did Obama try to overturn 30 years of dem policy and announce that he was opening both the east and west coasts to new offshore leases and drilling?

true or false - did Obama take more money from BP than any other politician ever?

true or false - did the obama admin give an enviro waiver to BP for all of its gulf wells in 2009?

true or false - did the obama admin push numbers that were 10% ofg the actual release from the spill even though NOAA said these numbers were wrong?

true or false - has the obama admin claimed that 80% of the oil was cleaned up or evaporated even when 3 university studies claim the numbers are approx the exact opposite?

being better than the GOP (the party of Big Oil) is the minimum I expect from Dems...

too bad Obama couldnt even do this

[Zen0469]

03:00 PM on 08/21/2010

You mean to say that there is no scientific concept that parallels the foKKKsNooz Presto-Its-gone mythology?

What good are all these scientists anyway if they can't make billions of gallon of BP Gulf oil disappear at the drop of a magic wand?

[justdoodling]

05:25 PM on 08/19/2010

why isn't this on the front page?

[runninggunman]

03:42 PM on 08/19/2010

Why is our own government helping BP? Answer: Our government is run by the Oil Industry.

Why else would our gov't help by hiding all the animal carcass's and with skewing the numbers so drastically. This incident is having a profound effect on our country and we all must do our part to make things change for the better. It's simple too, buy less oil products or none at all.

How does one do that with all the plastic packaging? Again buy less and whenever you can avoid packaging altogether. Why hasn't the industry embraced biodegradable packaging? ->Refer to answer one.

[Truth-Seeker]

02:24 PM on 08/19/2010

Thad Allen was on Charlie Rose last night and his "performance" was as expected - all smoke and mirrors. When asked what could have been done better, his answer was, basically, not much - everyone performed admirably, ESPECIALLY BP!!!. I sure hope Wikileaks gets us some TRUTH real soon (because the mainstream media are just lap dogs - not bloodhounds) and I sure hope we can finally expose Thad Allen for what he really is.

[Naina Vaish]

02:09 AM on 08/19/2010

There is still plenty to worry about. Of the 5 million barrels spilled, at least 1 million barrels remain in the ocean. Nearly 700 miles of beaches and wetlands are oiled or are at risk. The extent of the damage will not be known until the scientists and the courts have spoken, but there is still a lot to clean up. http://www.greennbrown.com

[Brutus76]

07:51 PM on 08/18/2010

I said it then and I'll say it now ... DId anyone really think the oil would just disappear. BP used unprecedented levels of toxic dispersants to hide the oil from the publics sight. They know that in the current 24/7 news cycle that out of sight means out of mind. I feel so sorry for the people of the gulf coast who will have to live with this for decades while most of the country turns the other way and forgets about this tragedy. I cannot imagine any seafood coming from the gulf being safe to consume and it's a tragedy that the government continues to claim it is all safe, just like they claimed the ashen debris filled air around NYC on 9/11 to be safe.

[Chipymonk]

09:21 PM on 08/18/2010

Brutus, I share the sadness you feel. Many of us who know what's going on are outraged over all the lies and deceit. Its not that most of the country will turn their backs and forget about it, they don't even know about it! The TV evening news that America watches every evening only shows what BP and our government wants them to see. And most of those people believe it.

[mrJJ]

05:22 PM on 08/18/2010

Plumes of Gulf oil spreading east on sea floor

Source: CNN

CNN) -- A new report set to be released Tuesday renews concerns about the long-term environmental impact of the Gulf Coast oil disaster, and efforts to permanently plug the ruptured BP oil well have been delayed again.

Researchers at the University of South Florida have concluded that oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill may have settled to the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico further east than previously suspected -- and at levels toxic to marine life.

Initial findings from a new survey of the Gulf conclude that dispersants may have sent droplets of crude to the ocean floor, where it has turned up at the bottom of an undersea canyon within 40 miles of the Florida Panhandle. The results are scheduled to be released Tuesday, but CNN obtained a summary of the initial conclusions Monday night.

Plankton and other organisms at the base of the food chain showed a "strong toxic response" to the crude, and the oil could well up onto the continental shelf and resurface later, according to researchers


http://edition.cnn.com/2010/US/08/17/gulf.oil.disaster/?hpt=T2#fbid=sC95XYs-YXc&wom=false

[THINK FOR YOURSELF Calif]

01:48 PM on 08/18/2010

Wasn't President Obama just in the Gulf swimming and telling us it was OK? Is he a republican?

[up420oz]

12:21 AM on 08/18/2010

I got to wonder about the average US citizens thinking, in reference to BP.
In Canada, BP did way smaller damage then the Gulf disaster, but they did have constant safety and environment violations.
We just nationalized BP, and put in place of their board, qualified civil servants with background in the oil industry. Changed all the BP stations to Petro Canada. After we were sure that the situation was rectified, we sold off Petro Canada to private corporations, excluding PB.
Problem solved.

Have a nice day.

[relians]

06:48 PM on 08/18/2010

cool! got any jobs up there for database analysts?..... :-)

[up420oz]

03:46 PM on 08/19/2010

sorry Chandler Bing, not my field. How anyone could enjoy that line of work is either a sign of insanity, or extreme professionalism.
good luck with that, and if interested in moving to Canada, check ot the Canadian government web site,

http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/index.asp

[RightsGuy]

09:12 PM on 08/17/2010

BP and other oil polluters and colluders have worked hard to COVER UP the environmental disaster they created. Here’s some of the evidence:

1. Information from geologists: Why is BP's Macondo Blowout So Disastrous and Beyond Patch-up:
http://bklim.newsvine.com/_news/2010/07/30/4781973-why-is-bps-macondo-blowout-so-disastrous-beyond-patch-up-
What you don’t see can be covered up. . . BP knew if the gushing well was completely shut at the top, oil and gas would spread beneath the sea floor and gas seeps would appear. With the cap on, it’s easier to manipulate the data. There is no need to prove the well is leaking. It is already a fact.

2. Where’s the oil? It’s Oozing out of the Louisiana Ground
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20100803/bs_yblog_upshot/wheres-the-oil-its-oozing-out-of-the-louisiana-ground
A slew of media reports last week asked, "Where is the oil?" angering many along the Gulf Coast, particularly those still seeing oil all over the place.
See this video report that confirms the outrage among Gulf residents who contend it's far too early for BP to scale back its cleanup campaign. It shows oil oozing out of Louisiana's coastal land.

[sagondo]

07:36 PM on 08/17/2010

You can't trust anything the government says, they've been running interference for BP.

[GeorgeMilquetoast]

06:00 PM on 08/17/2010

If you want to understand the current state of the Macondo B well, I strongly suggest you read the following post: http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6860 Because of assumptions made by the oversight panel, there may be some tricky issues involving a final k.i.l.l for this well.

Also, I previously posted that I had observed rising oil leaking from the new cap along with what looked like a sinking precipitate (perhaps refined oil and high-density material from the drilling-mud mix) subsequent to the static k.i.l.l, and was informed by one HP poster that I was probably not interpreting the video correctly. I quote the following from the above link:

"Because we have seen the very small leaks on some of the joints in the stack, any increase in pressure could possibly cause a greater failure, and a fluid leak into the Gulf of significant size. To ensure that doesn’t happen, the Admiral wants to be sure there is another form of pressure relief in place, or a way of capturing fluids, so that they don’t get into the water."

So, yes, the new cap is leaking, albeit slowly, as I had observed. This could be a problem if the static k.i.l.l is compromised by the relief well activity. Again, I suggest you read the above link for clarification.

[Robert Masters]

03:33 PM on 08/17/2010

Ecology is based on chicken little science. Crises are needed to maintain the momentum. When the constant state of crisis proves to be false then one only needs to say that the masses don't have the mental capacity to understand observations and must rely on conflicting "scientific" reports.

We shall now name those scientists who say that the oil is gone as "Oil Slick Deniers"