now, imagine pouring that same cup of oil into a wading pool. look at this, the gulf of mexico is 615,000 square miles. a huge difference, 11,000 versus 615,000 square miles. right now the spill area is about the size of prince william sound. and there could be different things at work here. wild cards we have to think about. what if you get different we have different types of oil here and in alaska. different tidal patterns, different winds. they may push it up to the coast, they may also push it out into the open where it could be diluted, break up, that s still not good for wildlife in the open seas, but different than hitting the super sensitive marsh lands. when you have all this plus the wild cards plus the possibility of something completely unexpected happening, just bad luck or good luck, we find ourselves saying, we really don t know what it s going to add up to at this point, but it could be much worse than valdez, or it could be much better.
that make? that s a really good point. it could be a huge difference. prince william s sound is basically 11,000 square miles. the spill there was held captive by surrounding land. there s only one little inlet here. imagine pouring a tiny cup of oil into a sauce pan of water. now, imagine pouring that same cup of oil into a wading pool. look at this, the gulf of mexico is 615,000 square miles. a huge difference, 11,000 versus 615,000 square miles. right now the spill area is about the size of prince william sound. and there could be different things at work here. wild cards we have to think about. what if you get different we have different types of oil here and in alaska. different tidal patterns, different winds. they may push it up to the coast, they may also push it out into the open where it could be diluted, break up, that s still not good for wildlife in the open seas, but different than
make no mistake about it. valdez was huge, about 11 million gallons and it happened pretty much all at once, giving neither humans nor animals much time to react or get out of the way or try to prevent it or anything else. the gulf spill, so far, is only about a third as big, 11 million for valdez, as you said, approaching 4 million down in the gulf. that s 4 million gallons since that rig exploded on april 20th. and the oil is entering the ecosystem at a much slower rate than it did in alaska, through these pipes under the ground. this is a photograph from under water there, as you can see. but we also know that in alaska, we had a finite amount of oil. here, we don t know when it s going to end. so if they can t cap it soon, we could still end up with much more oil than we saw up in valdez, anderson. tom, we re also looking at vastly different areas in terms of geography. what kind of difference does that make? that s a really good point. it could be a huge difference. prince wil
neither humans nor animals much time to react or get out of the way or try to prevent it or anything else. the gulf spill, so far, is only about a third as big, 11 million for valdez, as you said, approaching 4 million down in the gulf. that s 4 million since that rig exploded on april 20th. and the oil is entering the ecosystem at a much slower rate than it did in alaska, through these pipes under the ground. this is a photograph from under water there, as you can see. but we also know that in alaska, we had a finite amount of oil. here, we don t know when it s going to end. so if they don t cap it soon, we could still end up with much more oil than we saw up in valdez, anderson. tom, we re also looking at vastly different areas in terms of geography. what kind of difference does
the spill there was held captive by surrounding land. there s only one little inlet here. imagine pouring a tiny cup of oil into a sauce pan of water. now, imagine pouring that same cup of oil into a wading pool. look at this, the gulf of mexico is 615,000 square miles. a huge difference, 11,000 versus 615,000 square miles. right now the spill area is about the size of prince william sound. and there could be different things at work here. wild cards we have to think about. what if you get different we have different types of oil here and in alaska. different tidal patterns, different winds. they may push it up to the coast, they may also push it out into the open where it could be diluted, break up, that s still not good for wildlife in the open seas, but different than hitting the super sensitive marsh lands. when you include all of these things involved here, plus the wild cards, plus the possibility of something completely unexpected happening, just bad