The BP oil leak appears to be five times worse than the latest numbers BP released, according to a university oceanographer who will speak at a public forum in Pensacola on Saturday.
The amount leaked daily is approximately 25,000 barrels, much more than BP’s estimate of 5,000 barrels per day, according to Florida State University biological oceanographer Ian McDonald.
An estimated 5,000 barrels (210,000 gallons/795,000 liters) have poured into the Gulf each day since the well ruptured. But Ian MacDonald, a biological oceanographer at Florida State University, said the estimate was much too conservative.
The real flow rate from the undersea well, based on aerial images of the oil slick and estimates of the thickness of the oil itself, is probably closer to 25,000 barrels (1.05 million gallons/4 million liters) per day, MacDonald told Reuters.
(Source: Reuters, May 8, 2010.)
McDonald is scheduled to speak Saturday in Pensacola Beach, at a free, public forum on the Gulf of Mexico oil leak. The forum is scheduled for 2 p.m., May 8, at the Hilton Garden Inn in Pensacola Beach. More information about the forum, and a live webcast feed, is available at 888-oil-spill.com. The forum is sponsored by the law firm of Aylstock, Witkin, Kreis & Overholtz, PLLC.