Desert Oil Official Says Oil Spill Rivals Exxon Valdez Disaster

The oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is hitting home for some here in the Southland.

“This is going to be a lot worse than anyone thinks it’s going to be,” said Gary Rosenblum, a former corporate manager for oil company Arco, which merged with British Petroleum in 1999.

Since the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded more than two weeks ago, some 3 million gallons of oil have shot out of the sea floor, “and that resulted in 11 fatalities,” said Rosenblum.

The focus, now, is both trying to close the burst oil pipeline, and to capture the maximum amount of oil before it reaches the Gulf coast.

“But, a lot of the oil is moving underwater,” he said. “It’s got a mile between where it’s coming out of the ground and getting to the surface.”

Rosenblum is currently the risk manager for the city of Palm Desert. But, between 1982 and 1999, he served as a senior advisor of risk and safety policy for Arco.

“I was with Arco when the Exxon Valdez happened,” he said.

In 1989, the Exxon Valdez tanker spilled 260,000 barrels of oil just south of the Arctic.

“If you go to Alaska now. . . you can dig down with a shovel and find layers of oil that are just under sand,” he explained.

Exxon fought for some 20 years in court, denying full responsibility for the spill, “which really reduced the amount of financial loss that they occurred for the Exxon Valdez,” said Rosenblum.

The Oil Pollution Act of 1990 included a liability clause for oil companies, but, for only $75 million dollars, according to Rosenblum.

Although analysts expect this disaster to cost billions of dollars, BP, the company responsible for the spill, might get off cheap.

Rosenblum predicts, “The amount of oil that can get out could rival the amount, if not more already, than was spilled by the Valdez.”