4 barrels? 1,500 barrels? Who’s counting?
We all learned during last year’s Deepwater Horizon incident that oil spill estimates can fluctuate pretty rapidly, but this is still pretty dramatic: Enbridge Inc said a leaking pipeline in the Northwest Territories spilled as much as 1,500 barrels, drastically higher than its initial estimate of a four-barrel leak and the third major spill on ...
We all learned during last year's Deepwater Horizon incident that oil spill estimates can fluctuate pretty rapidly, but this is still pretty dramatic:
We all learned during last year’s Deepwater Horizon incident that oil spill estimates can fluctuate pretty rapidly, but this is still pretty dramatic:
Enbridge Inc said a leaking pipeline in the Northwest Territories spilled as much as 1,500 barrels, drastically higher than its initial estimate of a four-barrel leak and the third major spill on the company’s lines in less than 12 months.
The company said late on Monday that its initial forecast for the size of the spill on the Norman Wells line last month at a remote site 50 km (31 miles) south of Wrigley, Northwest Territories, was based on the amount of oil that collected on the surface. The company raised that estimate to 90 barrels earlier this month.
But further excavation found even more oil trapped under the surface. The company now says it expects between 700 and 1,500 barrels leaked from the line.
So somewhere between four and 1,500?
The company already spilled more than 20,000 barrels into a Michigan river system this year. Or should that be, "more than eight."
Joshua Keating was an associate editor at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @joshuakeating
More from Foreign Policy

Saudi-Iranian Détente Is a Wake-Up Call for America
The peace plan is a big deal—and it’s no accident that China brokered it.

The U.S.-Israel Relationship No Longer Makes Sense
If Israel and its supporters want the country to continue receiving U.S. largesse, they will need to come up with a new narrative.

Putin Is Trapped in the Sunk-Cost Fallacy of War
Moscow is grasping for meaning in a meaningless invasion.

How China’s Saudi-Iran Deal Can Serve U.S. Interests
And why there’s less to Beijing’s diplomatic breakthrough than meets the eye.