After a spill from a rig off Long Beach was reported early Saturday, Oct. 2, an estimated 126,000 gallons of oil poured into the waters off Orange County.
But how much is that? For perspective, here is how that volume of oil compares to other amounts of liquids.
1/5 an Olympic pool
Swimming pools used in Olympic competitions must meet exacting standards set by an organization called FINA. To fill that 50-by-25-meter pool to its optimal depth of two meters, 660,000 gallons of water need to be poured. That is roughly five times the amount of oil that spilled off the California coast.
Gas for 12 trash trucks
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, a refuse truck uses an average of 10,089 gallons of fuel every year. A dozen such trucks would use 121,068 gallons, just shy of the amount of oil spilled over the weekend
3,150 loads of laundry
Older clothes washers use about 40 gallons of water per load, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It would take more than 3,000 of those loads to fill in the amount of space taken by the oil spill.
If you use newer washers, which only need about 25 gallons a load, that washer would have to run 5,040 times to reach that same amount.
Family water for 420 days
The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that the average American family uses more than 300 gallons of water every day. It would take a year and almost two months for that family to use the equivalent of the volume of oil spilled into the Orange County coast.
690 years of drinking water
At the WaterTalks project at Cal State San Bernardino, survey participants drink on average, about half a gallon of water in a day. One of those people would have to live almost seven centuries to consume as much water as the amount of oil that has seeped into the shores near Huntington Beach.
Source: Orange County Register
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