Wallace's World June 22, 2010, 12:01AM EST

A Dead Zone Was Already in the Gulf

The BP oil spill is making it even worse. But few people paid much attention to this 25-year-long environmental disaster

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The environmental damage being done to the Gulf of Mexico is often described as the size of either New Jersey or Massachusetts so the layman can understand its vastness, and indeed its enormity. Most recently the damage has been estimated to cover almost 9,000 square miles, an area that includes some of our most important shrimp fishing grounds. And—certainly if President Barack Obama has his way with the current crisis—scientists believe that for decades into the future, his suggestions will only further expand the Dead Zone in the Gulf.

Yes, long before Deepwater Horizon, there already was an existing Dead Zone in the Gulf of Mexico. And this 25-year-long environmental disaster was well-known to many scientists. The ignored crisis in the Gulf comes from the constantly increasing level of chemical nutrients, mostly nitrogen and phosphorus, that's fed into the Gulf from the Mississippi River. It has caused continuing damage to some of America's best fishing waters. The only difference between this long-term chemical Gulf disaster and the more recent oil-based problem is that virtually no one in America knew or even cared about it.

No Magic Fix

In many ways reminiscent of how it treated the recent Toyota (TM) acceleration news, runaway oil prices from 2005 to 2008, or even the mystery surrounding the death of Clinton aide Vince Foster, the media's primary reporting thrust now seems to be exploring speculation or "exposing" missed predictions and forecasts. Not to mention trying to assign quick blame for the disaster, using the few facts that have been disclosed.

Never slow to take advantage of a crisis, Congress got its second chance in four months to stage a world-class show trial so the public can see that they are on the job.

Unfortunately, few elected officials have the background necessary to understand deep-sea oil exploration and drilling.

And granted, initially in stories covering major disasters, speculation is always rife. But 60 continuous days of speculation, if not outright evasion, without any resolution or honest answers to the questions being asked, simply frustrates and angers the public. Worse, it encourages the irrational belief that this disaster can be quickly or magically resolved.

Been There, Done That

In fact, from the first day that oil began spewing out of BP's (BP) Macondo well, everyone who actually knows something about offshore drilling seemed to understand that closing off this gusher was going to take sizable amounts of time and money—if not luck.

Real oilmen can immediately rattle off the names of previous similar oil disasters at sea: the Piper Alpha's sinking in 1988, the Ixtoc I oil spill in 1979, the Timbalier blowout in 1992, or Australia's Montara well last year. They will also give the exact same response when asked specifically how to control the current disaster, and it is the same one T. Boone Pickens gave weeks ago: It's going to take drilling relief wells to reduce the pressure of the oil, and only then can you cap the well.

This newest disaster most closely mirrors that of the Ixtoc I well, lost by Pemex 31 years ago, almost 12,000 feet down in the Gulf's Bay of Campeche.

The drilling rig Sedco 135-F lost drilling mud circulation. The already abnormally high well pressure allowed oil to fill the drill column, which in turn led to a fire and the sinking of the Sedco platform. The leak was originally believed to be spilling 30,000 barrels a day into the Gulf of Mexico; mud (drilling fluid) was pumped into the open well to stabilize the pressure, reducing the flow of oil by a third. The second step, pumping steel and lead balls into the well, reduced the flow by half again. (BP took similar steps to control the current gusher, but unsuccessfully.)

Chemical dispersants were sprayed onto the Ixtoc I oil slick, and over the next nine months many experts were brought in to attempt to cap the well. In the end it was the successful drilling of the relief wells that reduced the oil pressure at the original wellhead. Only then was it successfully capped.