Ocean 3/4 full kind of report

Always depends on how you look at it.

Roughly three-quarters of the oil that spilled into the Gulf of Mexico from BP’s ruptured well is still in the environment, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration official told a House panel Thursday. 
 


The estimate contrasts previous pronouncements by administration officials that only about a quarter of the oil remains to be addressed.

Bill Lehr, a senior scientist at NOAA, said at a House Energy and Commerce subpanel hearing Thursday that federal officials have only confirmed that 10 percent of the 4.1 million barrels of oil that leaked into the Gulf have been either skimmed or burned. 
 


Federal officials used a different estimate of how much oil leaked from the well — 4.9 million barrels — in preparing a report this month saying that only about 25 percent is still left to be recovered in the water. But critics say using that higher baseline skewed the numbers.


 


Remember those two months we spent putting Top Hats and half-lids on top of the well and then taking those off and putting other stuff in their place while siphoning some of the oil onto boats (when we weren't pausing for storms and lightning and stuff) but never agreeing on how much was captured or siphoned or even how much was really flowing out of anywhere? One wonders if the point of all that wasn't just to keep anyone from being able to put an accurate number on how much oil got into the Gulf in the first place much less how much is left now.