title:  Fly Over Shows May 12 Gulf Oil Spill Far Worse Than Reported (VIDEO)
text: Shell admits to spilling 90,000 gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico on May 12, 2016. Footage of the spill, captured by Ecogig Scientist Dr. Ian MacDonald during a fly over of the site, shows that the company has vastly misrepresented the size and magnitude of the spill.According to MacDonald, the spill covers more than five square nautical miles, the equivalent of 20 square kilometers, or about 5,000 acres.Maps, flight logs and other documentation regarding the aerial survey of the May 12 Gulf oil spill can be found here.MacDonald s survey of the deepwater spill found that the extent of the damage is not consistent with the company s stated figures.As MacDonald reports here:Even if the average thickness of the visible oil were a mere 100 micron (0.1 millimeter, vastly smaller than the areas of emulsified oil that stretch across the area), the visible surface oil would represent about 500,000 gallons of oil.MacDonald is with the nonprofit organization On Wings Of Care. The group has conducted hundreds of aerial surveys and logged thousands of flight-tracking hours since 2004, working in the Gulf of Mexico, Pacific Ocean coast and many other areas.Referring to the recent Shell oil spill, which is located about 100 miles off the coast of Louisiana, MacDonald stressed the severity of what he observed, saying: We haven t seen images like this since the BP disaster of 2010.According to his report, which can be read here, the smell of oil was so strong that it was physically  uncomfortable  for the crew to fly closer than 1,000 feet above the spill.During the fly over MacDonald observed two small  clean-up  vessels.According to the report:There were two skimming vessels in the vicinity, but they appeared to be on the distant periphery of the slick, and the amount of oil that appeared to be within their booms was pitifully small compared to the size of the slick, which covered over 5 square nautical miles.On May 16, SkyTruth, a nonprofit environmental organization based in West-Virginia, blasted Shell s response to the spill calling it  a joke, but not a very funny joke,  writing:Thank you, Shell, for demonstrating quite convincingly over the past 4 days that oil spill cleanup is nothing more than a convenient fantasy.The organization also raised alarms about the shoddy monitoring of offshore drilling operations, noting that the recent spill was discovered entirely by accident.This spill was discovered accidentally by a helicopter pilot flying over the area who happened to spot the slick.  That s right: a modern pipeline at a high-tech deepwater development project leaked thousands of gallons of oil, and that leak was accidentally discovered.  Not because high-tech telemetry on the pipeline signaled an alarm due to a drop in pressure; not because flow metering detected a difference between what was going in one end of the pipe vs. what was coming out the other.  How long would this leak have continued, if not for the sheer luck of having a vigilant pilot happening by?Here s the disturbing footage from MacDonald s fly over of the spill. Image credit: video screen capture via Ian MacDonald, YouTube