Upper estimates of the spill have been calculated to be as much as 140,000,000 US gallons (530,000,000 L; 120,000,000 imp gal), or about 3,333,300 barrels of oil lost over the life of the disaster, and affecting an area as large as 8 square miles (21 km2).

[7] Since 2019, Couvillion Group, retained by the USCG after a national RFP (Request for Proposal) process, has been capturing approximately a thousand gallons per day.

[4] On September 16, 2004, the eye of Hurricane Ivan passed within 62 miles (100 km) of the site, generating 145 mph winds and waves of roughly 70 to 80 feet high.

[4][11][10] According to The Washington Post, although Taylor Energy reported the spill to the USCG at the time, The Coast Guard "...monitored the site for more than half a decade without making the public fully aware..." of the severity of the leak.

Because no people died from the accident and because there was no immediate and obvious impact on surrounding ecosystems, Taylor Energy and the government managed to keep the disaster completely secret from the public.

"[13] In 2015, the Associated Press conducted an investigation into the spill, and when provided with the results, the U.S. Coast Guard updated their leak estimates to one that was "about 20 times greater than one recently touted by the company.

[14] As of June 2019, a report by the National Center for Coastal Ocean Science estimated that the flow rate of oil leaking at the site was between 9 and 108 barrels per day.

[17][4] According to a 2008 report from the USCG, the leak represented a "...significant threat..." to the surrounding environment, although they did not find evidence that oil from the spill had reached the nearby shoreline.

"[10][18][15] In 2008, Taylor Energy entered into an agreement with the Minerals Management Service to decommission the site, and the USCG established a dedicated multi-agency unified command structure to complete and oversee the work.

[21] On May 16, 2019, the USCG reported that Couvillion Group's containment system was working well enough to reduce the heavy surface sheen to barely visible, as it was collecting approximately 1,000 gallons per day.

[10] According to University of Miami marine biologist Robert Jones, some species, namely benthic invertebrates, are unable to move from the site of a prolonged oil release and are, thus, likely to suffer the most from a spill; he also claims that smaller organisms are typically impacted to a greater extent than larger organisms in cases of oil spills.

As of 2019, studies focused more on economic opportunities, such as how jobs can be created by the oil companies that work with local communities to clean up hazardous spills.

[24] Environmentalists took Taylor Energy to court for engaging in a “secret deal” with the federal government that did not adhere to national policies that state that, in the event of a hazardous spill, citizen participation will be provided, encouraged, and assisted.

According to the lawsuit, Taylor Energy, in agreement with the U.S. Coast Guard, purposefully neglected its obligation to adhere to the aforementioned policy when it chose to hide the spill from the public.

[4][10][11] That number has been further updated to approximately a thousand gallons a day by the verified receipt of oil being captured daily by Couvillion Group.

[3] At a 2016 public forum Taylor Energy's President William Pecue, argued that his company should be allowed to walk away from its obligation to clean up the oil spill in the Gulf.

Pecue's goal was to recover $450 million, arguing the spill could not be contained and that the disaster was no one's fault because the company had no control over Hurricane Ivan.