Well, I was off by a long shot. Based on this information from the New York Times, the pipe that’s leaking all the oil is probably no more than a foot wide.

Watch this video, though, and I bet you would’ve guessed the hole was three blocks wide, too.

How can that much oil spew through a foot-wide pipe every day? Not only is it mind-boggling, but horrific as well. I found that video through a Dot Earth post by New York Times’ Andrew Revkin is a great read, by the way. Check it out here.

Google says that one barrel equals 42 gallons of oil. Right now, the average price of gas in Oregon is $2.85/gallon. By that (overly simplified, just-using-for-estimates-to-make-a-point) math:

25,000 barrels x 42 gallons per barrel = 1,050,000 gallons of oil per day

1,050,000 gallons x $2.85 per gallon = $2,992,500.00 of oil, at the average Oregon price, per day

$2,992.500.00 x 62 days = $185,535,000.00 of oil that has been dumped into the Gulf since April 22, 2010.

That’s a rough estimate, but it’s still crazy to think that approximately $185 million worth of oil has gushed in the ocean, while millions more are lost in regional revenue due to unemployment, fishing bans, loss of tourists, etc. Obama may have stronghanded BP into paying $20 billion over the next five years for this mess, but no amount of money will be able to save the Gulf’s ecosystems.