The National Marine Fisheries Service's 700-page analysis greatly underestimates both the likely number and size of oil spills, according to the suit filed by Earthjustice for the
Even though the study was prompted by the 2010 spill, it “essentially pretends the Deepwater Horizon spill never happened — that there was nothing to learn from that disaster,” Earthjustice attorney
The federal agency said it left the possibility of an extremely large spill like
The previous analysis, in 2007, also estimated that “such a large spill was extremely unlikely,” the lawsuit noted. That analysis had estimated that “the largest spill possible would be at most 15,000 barrels," or 630,000 gallons (2.4 million liters).
The 2010 spill, which started with a blowout that killed 11 men, was hundreds of times bigger than that. Estimates of the amount of oil spewed into the Gulf for 87 days varied from from nearly 176 million gallons (666 million liters) to less than 103 million gallons (390 million liters). A federal judge calculated damages based on 134 million gallons (507 million liters) in the Gulf.
The chance of such a spill is even higher now, the lawsuit said, because "Gulf drilling is moving into deeper waters, which increases the possibility of a catastrophic well blowout and extremely large oil spill."
The study also failed to consider the increased frequency, due to climate change, of hurricanes that can severely damage oil and gas facilities, nor did it take into account recent research about the danger of underwater landslides that can cause extremely large oil spills, the lawsuit said.
In addition, it said, the analysis left out the
The groups asked a federal court in
The fisheries service does not comment on pending litigation, spokeswoman
The federal agencies that regulate offshore oil operations are required by the Endangered Species Act to insure that their actions aren’t likely to jeopardize endangered or threatened species or damage their critical habitat. Offshore oil regulators asked the National Marine Fisheries Service for a new analysis on
Ten years later, the result is “just another hand out to Big Oil,”
“Overall, I think they did as good a job as you can do with something like that," McKinney said.
He predicted the litigation will be lengthy because both the report and suit cover a huge area and many species.
It will be largely a battle of experts, he said, but allegations about ignoring large spills are a strength of the suit. “That’s a straightforward question: Did you do that or not? Then you can have debate about whether it’s important,” he said.
The report estimated the largest spills would average about one-third the size of
The suit said
However, Epstein said the government's 30-day capping estimate seemed reasonable: “There are capping devices that we didn't have" in 2010.
Eaton of Earthjustice said in a news release Wednesday, "This administration is convinced that if they ignore something, it will go away. It’s not working for the climate crisis and it’s not going to work for oil spills.”
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