Drip by drip, day by day, the oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico is adding up to mind-boggling numbers.
Using worst case scenarios calculated by scientists, a month’s worth of leaking oil could fill enough gallon milk jugs to stretch more than 11,300 miles. That’s more than the distance from New York to Buenos Aires, Argentina, and back. That’s just shy of 130 million gallons. If the government’s best case scenario is used — and only 5.25 million gallons have spilled — those milk jugs would cover a bit more than a roundtrip between New York and Washington. But, the government is revising that number, with a team of scientists working around the clock to come up with a more realistic and likely higher figure.
Here’s another way to think of just how much oil has gushed out since April 20: At worst, it’s enough to fill 102 school gymnasiums to the ceiling with oil.
That’s nothing compared to the vast expanse of the Gulf of Mexico, where there are 643 quadrillion gallons. Even under the worst case scenario, the Gulf has five billion drops of water for every drop of oil. And the mighty Mississippi River pours 3.3 million gallons of new water into Gulf every second. Under the rosiest scenario, little more than four gyms would be filled. That’s how the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration visualises oil spill volumes on one of its websites.
At worst, the amount of oil that has already spilled is a dozen times more than the Exxon Valdez disaster. At best, it’s only half as bad. Realistically, it’s probably somewhere in that huge middle in between. No matter what, it already is way too much oil for the delicate parts of the Gulf ecosystem, said Darryl Felder, a biologist at the University of Louisiana Lafayette.