Oil spill volume is a limited measure of damage or impact. Smaller spills have already proven to have a great impact on ecosystems, such as the "Exxon Valdez" oil spill because of the remoteness of the site or the difficulty of an emergency environmental response. Since 2004, between 300 and 700 barrels of oil per day have been leaking from the site of an oil-production platform 12 miles off the Louisiana coast which sank in the aftermath of Hurricane Ivan. The oil spill, which officials estimate could continue throughout the 21st century, will eventually overtake the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizion disaster as
Prudhoe Bay oil spill extent of the oil spills and oversaw BPXA’s cleanup. When BP XA did not fully comply with the terms of the CAO, a complaint was filed in March 2009 alleging violations of the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act and the Pipeline Safety Act. In July 2011, the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska entered a consent decree between the United States and BPXA resolving the government’s claims. Under the consent decree, BPXA paid a $25 million civil penalty, the largest per-barrel penalty at that time for an oil spill, and agreed to take measures to significantly