Figure 7-17 Petroleum Spills Impacting Navigable Waterways: 1985, 1990, and 1995-2015
NOTES: The spike in Gallons spilled for 2005 can be attributed to the passage of Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana and Mississippi on Aug. 29, 2005, which caused numerous spills approximating 8 million gallons of oil in U.S. waters. The largest spill in U. S. waters began on April 20, 2010 with an explosion and fire on the mobile offshore drilling unit (MODU) DEEPWATER HORIZON. Subsequently, the MODU sank, leaving an open exploratory well to discharge crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico for several weeks. The most commonly accepted spill amout from the well is approximately 206.6 million gallons, plus approximately 400,000 gallons of oil products from the MODU. The totals in this table may be different from those that appear in the source, due to rounding by the source.
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Transportation, Bureau of Transportation Statistics, National Transportation Statistics, Table 4-54, Available at http://www.bts.gov as of May 2016.