The Ever-Growing Gulf Disaster

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The estimate from the government flow rate team now puts the size of the Gulf disaster somewhere between 20,000 and 40,000 barrels of oil per day (or possibly as high as 50,000). The ever-ballooning figure is twice the size of the government’s last estimate. But it’s at least 100 times the size of what we were told was coming out of the well in the first days after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon.

Josh Nelson at EnviroKnow put together a chart illustrating the ever-ballooning disaster:

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We’ll say it loud and clear: At Mother Jones, no one gets to tell us what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please do your part and help us reach our $150,000 membership goal by May 31.

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