NEW ORLEANS —
An oil spill that has been quietly leaking millions of barrels into the
Gulf of Mexico has gone unplugged for so long that it now verges on
becoming one of the worst offshore disasters in U.S. history.
Between
300 and 700 barrels of oil per day have been spewing from a site 12
miles off the Louisiana coast since 2004, when an oil-production
platform owned by Taylor Energy sank in a mudslide triggered by
Hurricane Ivan. Many of the wells have not been capped, and federal
officials estimate that the spill could continue through this century.
With no fix in sight, the Taylor offshore spill is threatening to
overtake BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster as the largest ever.
