A retired Kansas University professor of geology and civil engineering said Monday that while the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is bad, it’s not the worst the area has seen.

Ernie Angino, who has also served on the Lawrence City Commission and as the city’s mayor, recalled a bigger oil spill off the coast of Mexico in 1979.

The circumstances were similar to the current spill, only the Mexican Ixtoc 1 spill in the southern Gulf of Mexico in 1979 was under about 150 feet of water, as opposed to the current 5,000-foot-deep BP spill.

Relief wells eventually allowed the Ixtoc well to be capped after about 10 months, but not until after the spill dumped almost 140 million gallons of oil into the Gulf, reaching all the way up to Padre Island in Texas, Angino said.

The event shows the Gulf has recuperative properties, Angino said. Warm waters and sunlight helped break down the oil faster than expected.

Other scientists say it is difficult to know how much long-term damage Ixtoc caused because it is hard to separate the effects of the spill from overfishing, sediment, runoff and other pollution.

U.S. government officials have said that a recent cap BP placed on the Deepwater Horizon well is collecting about 466,200 gallons per day of the 604,800 to 1.26 million gallons of oil that a BP spokesman estimated the well is spewing daily.

“I don’t think you can completely predict when it’s going to stop,” Angino said of the current spill. “I hope it’s tomorrow. But I wouldn’t bet my bottom dollar on it.”

He said he wished the spill hadn’t happened, and he doesn’t see an easy fix.

“Drilling in 5,000 feet of water is still pioneering type work, even though they do it frequently,” he said.

He said he thought more government regulations were necessary to ensure backup systems and other safeguards were in place, noting that the United States’ regulations aren’t as strict as those in Brazil and other nations.