Obama Lied Again: Georgia Oceanographers Show Up to 79% of Gulf Oil Spill Remains

A report released Monday from the University of Georgia concluded that up to 79% of the oil released into the Gulf of Mexico from the Deepwater Horizon well has not been recovered, and remains a threat to the ecosystem. The report by five prominent marine scientists contradicts government reports released earlier this month, which led many to believe that only 25% of the oil still remained a threat.

So the Obama administration lied again. One must now accept government statistics on the oil spill clean-up with the same seriousness as their reports of economic recovery.

"One major misconception is that oil that has dissolved into water is gone and, therefore, harmless," said Charles Hopkinson, a professor of marine sciences in the University of Georgia. "The oil is still out there, and it will likely take years to completely degrade. We are still far from a complete understanding of what its impacts are," Hopkinson said.

The group of five scientists analyzed data from the Aug. 2 National Incident Command Report, which calculated an oil budget that was widely interpreted to suggest that only 25% of the oil from the spill remained. Their analysis concludes that the vast majority of the oil classified by the government as dispersed, dissolved, or residual is still present. Most reports have interpreted the National Incident Command report to suggest that only the residual form of oil is still present.

Hopkinson said that his group also estimated how much of the oil could have evaporated, degraded, or weathered as of the date of the report. Using a range of reasonable evaporation and degradation estimates, the group calculated that 70%-79% of oil spilled into the Gulf still remains. The group showed that it was impossible for all the dissolved oil to have evaporated, because only oil at the surface of the ocean can evaporate into the atmosphere and large plumes of oil are trapped in deep water.

On a positive note, the group from the University of Georgia and Skidaway Institute of Oceanography noted that natural processes continue to transform, dilute, degrade, and evaporate the oil. They add that the circular current known as the Franklin Eddy is preventing the Loop Current from bringing oil-contaminated water from the Gulf to the Atlantic, which bodes well for the East Coast.

University of Georgia Professor of Marine Sciences Samantha Joye, a lead author, warned that neither the government nor the Georgia analysis accounted for hydrocarbon gases such as methane in their oil budgets. "That's a gaping hole," Joye said, "because hydrocarbon gases are a huge portion of what was ejected from the well."