What happened?The Lakeview Well erupted on March 15, 1910, releasing a geyser of dark oil that shot into the sky. As days passed, the “Lakeview Gusher” showed little sign of being stopped.
Workers attempted to cover the fountain-like spray with an immense “hood” in the hopes of conserving more oil. At this point, the gusher had already outlived its predecessors as the greatest one in history. Months later, on July 22, 1910, Grey River Argus reported the oily geyser had baffled every effort to control it. Between 40,000 to 50,000 (other estimate 80,000) barrels of oil were being depleted per day without a hint of slowing down. Much of the oil was lost through absorption into the ground or in spray blown in the wind. |
Simply put, the Lakeview Gusher, which spewed across the landscape of the Kern County community of Maricopa from March 1910 to September 1911, is the single worst known oil spill in the history of the world. In that period almost 379 million gallons of crude oil sprayed uncontrollably from an ill-placed Kern County oil well in a Unocal oil field, at peak flows approaching 800,000 gallons per day, and only the sacrifice of the health of hundreds of workers kept that oil from flowing into Buena Vista Lake. First-person accounts describe men working completely covered in oil, with nothing in the way of protective equipment, and a plague of serious skin conditions among workers as a result.
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Despite the oil's retention in a makeshift reservoir surrounding the gusher and hastily-built pipelines siphoning the overflow to Unocal's Avila Beach facility, less than half the oil was recovered. The rest either soaked into the ground and local aquifer, or evaporated. Even so, the sudden surplus of crude from the Lakeview Gusher caused oil prices to crash worldwide.
And then, on September 10, 1911, after 544 days of uncontrollable gusher, something shifted deep in the earth. Enough pressure had been released that the geological formation holding the oil collapsed, reducing pressure even further and ending the disaster. Except it's not over yet: Solidified crude oil still covers the ground at the Lakeview Gusher site, providing mute testimony to a disaster that stands out by its sheer scale from all the other disasters inevitable in a world that relies on petroleum for its energy fix. Not many animals were harmed in this oil spill, but the area will forever be effected by this oil spill. |