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
Oil spill governance in the United States Oil spill governance in the United States Oil spill governance in the United States is governed by federal law. The governance framework for oil spills in the United States prior to the Oil Pollution Act (OPA) of 1990 lacked proper consolidation and proved to be inadequate in preventing and responding to oil spillages. A timeline produced by the World Resources Institute (WRI) highlights some key events in oil drilling governance and regulatory system that ultimately govern oil spills in the United States. Although the OPA provides a framework for oil spillage governance recent events resulting in the BP deep water