Everybody knows BP's spill was bad, but:
An agonizing 87 days passed before the well was finally plugged on July 15. By then, 210 million gallons of Louisiana sweet crude had escaped into the Gulf of Mexico, according to government estimates, making the BP disaster the largest accidental oil leak in world history.
210 million gallons??
The true magnitude of the leak was successfully concealed by the use of almost 2 million gallons of a hideously toxic dispersant, Corexit.
Follow me across the squiggly thing if you dare...
In a piece far too long to extract here Newsweek details BP's successful coverup of the extent of the spill and the true nature of the "dispersant" from the public, the Government and even the workers they hired to "clean" it up.
I know, accusing a corporation, especially an oil company, of dishonesty is shocking, but it looks like Newsweek has the goods this time.
The financial implications are enormous. The trial now under way in New Orleans is wrestling with whether BP was guilty of “negligence” or “gross negligence” for the Deepwater Horizon disaster. If found guilty of “negligence,” BP would be fined, under the Clean Water Act, $1,100 for each barrel of oil that leaked. But if found guilty of “gross negligence”—which a cover-up would seem to imply—BP would be fined $4,300 per barrel, almost four times as much, for a total of $17.5 billion. That large a fine, combined with an additional $34 billion that the states of Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida are seeking, could have a powerful effect on BP’s economic health.