Federal officials said Thursday that far more oil than they originally estimated was probably pouring into the Gulf of Mexico on a daily basis since the collapse of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig.
The new estimate — 12,000 to 19,000 barrels a day — is two to five times higher than the 5,000 barrels a day figure given by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on April 28, and establishes the oil spill as the largest in American history.
The government has been harshly criticized by scientists for underestimating the rate of the flow and for what appears to be its reluctance to force BP, the oil giant that owned the lease on the well, to more precisely measure the rate at which oil was gushing from the pipe into the gulf. The company’s liability is in part determined by the extent of the spill.
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