Ixtoc, We Hardly Knew You!

Ixtoc, We Hardly Knew You! was Originally Posted on July 1, 2010 by lavarock

Ixtoc. Remember Ixtoc? I don’t, yet it was the biggest oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico until today, when BP’s exceeded that.

It was an exploratory well that was being drilled in 1979 when the well lost mud circulation. There was a blowout, a fire and while trying to fill the hole a catastrophic blowout happened. The oil slick carried towards Texas. The Mexico-owned company claimed sovereign immunity and only spent $100 million to clean up.

The oil slick effected sea turtles and thousands were airlisted to save them.

According to Wikipedia, most beaches were back to normal in 2 to 3 years. After 6 years it was difficult to find any evidence of the oil.

The reason I mention this is two-fold. We hear the news that this is a giant spill and that is true, but not THE biggest. Until today it was not even the biggest in the Gulf. It still will take a lot to be bigger than the one in the Persian Gulf which was two to three times this one.

The same type of reporting came recently when it was said unemployment was at an all-time high, until it was found that it was worse in 1982 when it hit 10.8%. It was 10% the end of 2009, so although bad, it appears it WAS worse, they just don’t want to mention that. Of course, each administration changes the way they define unemployed. It now sys that to be unemployed you must be “looking” for work and not employed. If you now are out of work, WERE looking for work but now are not, you WERE unemployed and now are not in those unemployed figures. Go here and choose the maximum date range http://tinyurl.com/5s3jg3 to see unemployment figures and graphs.

Statistics. Gotta love them (if they say what you want).