Tag Archives: Gulf oil spill

The Gulf oil spill, which British Petroleum is now trying to cap, so to speak, at the wellhead five thousand feet below the surface with a steel and concrete box, is puny compared to a Pemex one back in the early 80s 1979. That sucker was spewing even more oil than BP’s until it finally was plugged up. It involved a Dallas company owned by our then-Gov. Bill Clements who was leasing equipment to Pemex, the Mexican national oil company.

The Pemex blowout’s saving grace, as I recall, was that it was scores of miles south of the Texas coast, somewhere in the Bay of Campeche. BP’s is less dramatic but more worrisome because it is relatively close to the mouth of the Mississippi River. Hence whatever oil does not sink to the bottom or get volatilized in the warm air and water will soil the beaches and fishing grounds of four states.

Though I expect the Mexicans are still trying to get the tar balls off their own beaches south of Matamoros. Pemex, long a power in Mexican politics, is far less environmental- or social-minded than BP. You just seldom read about it. Our news media rarely penetrates that far south, and Pemex and the Mexican government would not cooperate if they did.

UPDATE:  Houston Chronicle claims some of it got as far north as the beaches at Port A. Not much, apparently, as they credit “heavy rains” with washing most of it away.