ECOCIDE
U.S. probing nearly 350 reports of oil spills in Gulf of Mexico after Hurricane IdaBy Staff Reuters
Posted September 6, 2021
Hurricane Ida: Parts of US northeast cleanup, as national guard helps Louisiana residents
The U.S. Coast Guard said on Monday it was investigating nearly 350 reports of oil spills in and along the U.S. Gulf of Mexico in the wake of Hurricane Ida.
Ida’s 150 mile-per-hour (240 kph) winds wreaked havoc on offshore oil production platforms and onshore oil and gas processing plants. About 88% of the region’s offshore oil production remains shut and more than 100 platforms unoccupied after the storm made landfall on Aug. 29.
The Coast Guard has been conducting flyovers off the coast of Louisiana looking for spills. It is providing information to federal, state and local authorities responsible for cleaning the sites.
Flights on Sunday found evidence of a new leak from an offshore well and reported another leak responsible for a miles-long streak of oil was no longer active. A third report of oil near a drilling platform could not be confirmed, it said.
READ MORE: Agencies investigating reports of oil, chemical spills resulting from Hurricane Ida
Offshore oil producer Talos Energy Inc, which hired divers and a cleanup crew to respond to an oil spill in Bay Marchand, said old pipelines damaged during the storm were apparently responsible.
The source of the Bay Marchand leak remains unknown, said Coast Guard spokesman Lieutenant John Edwards. A Coast Guard-led team “will be looking at all potential sources in order to ensure any future risk is mitigated,” he said.
The spill off the coast of Port Fourchon, Louisiana, had decreased substantially since it was first discovered last week, Talos said. The company is not the owner of the pipelines and had ceased production operations in the area four years ago, said spokesman Brian Grove.
An offshore well belonging to S2 Energy was discharging oil about five miles (8 km) away from the Bay Marchand site, the Coast Guard said. The company told the Coast Guard it has secured the wellhead and it was no longer discharging oil.
S2 did not immediately reply to a request for comment
Talos Energy denies it owns leaking pipeline ruptured by Hurricane Ida
Divers at the site found a one-foot-diameter pipeline moved from a trench on the ocean floor at about 34 feet of depth
Reuters
Publishing date:Sep 06, 2021 •
In a satellite image, an oil slick is shown on Thursday south of Port Fourchon, La.
PHOTO BY MAXAR TECHNOLOGIES VIA AP
HOUSTON — The U.S. Coast Guard said on Monday it was investigating nearly 350 reports of oil spills in and along the U.S. Gulf of Mexico in the wake of Hurricane Ida.
Ida’s 240 kph winds wreaked havoc on offshore oil production platforms and onshore oil and gas processing plants. About 88% of the region’s offshore oil production remains shut and more than 100 platforms unoccupied after the storm made landfall on Aug. 29.
The Coast Guard has been conducting flyovers off the coast of Louisiana looking for spills. It is providing information to federal, state and local authorities responsible for cleaning the sites.
Flights on Sunday found evidence of a new leak from an offshore well and reported another leak responsible for a miles-long streak of oil was no longer active. A third report of oil near a drilling platform could not be confirmed, it said.
Offshore oil producer Talos Energy Inc, which hired divers and a cleanup crew to respond to an oil spill in Bay Marchand, said old pipelines damaged during the storm were apparently responsible.
The source of the Bay Marchand leak remains unknown, said Coast Guard spokesman Lieutenant John Edwards. A Coast Guard-led team “will be looking at all potential sources in order to ensure any future risk is mitigated,” he said.
The spill off the coast of Port Fourchon, Louisiana, had decreased substantially since it was first discovered last week, Talos said. The company is not the owner of the pipelines and had ceased production operations in the area four years ago, spokesman Brian Grove said in a statement issued Sunday evening.
Divers at the site said the 1-foot-diameter pipeline was moved from a trench on the ocean floor at about 34 feet of depth and ruptured.
The area where the spill is located is a latticework of old pipelines, plugged wells and abandoned platforms left behind by decades of oil and gas drilling, the Associated Press reported on Saturday.
An offshore well belonging to S2 Energy was discharging oil about five miles (8 km) away from the Bay Marchand site, the Coast Guard said. The company told the Coast Guard it has secured the wellhead and it was no longer discharging oil.
S2 did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
The Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ) said it is working with the Coast Guard and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to require companies responsible for any spills to halt and clean up the discharges.
“If necessary USCG and/or the EPA can open federal funding streams to cover mitigation costs,” LDEQ said. (Reporting by Arpan Varghese and Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru, Gary McWilliams in Houston and Stephanie Kelly in New York Editing by Marguerita Choy and Matthew Lewis)
HOUSTON — The U.S. Coast Guard said on Monday it was investigating nearly 350 reports of oil spills in and along the U.S. Gulf of Mexico in the wake of Hurricane Ida.
Ida’s 240 kph winds wreaked havoc on offshore oil production platforms and onshore oil and gas processing plants. About 88% of the region’s offshore oil production remains shut and more than 100 platforms unoccupied after the storm made landfall on Aug. 29.
The Coast Guard has been conducting flyovers off the coast of Louisiana looking for spills. It is providing information to federal, state and local authorities responsible for cleaning the sites.
Flights on Sunday found evidence of a new leak from an offshore well and reported another leak responsible for a miles-long streak of oil was no longer active. A third report of oil near a drilling platform could not be confirmed, it said.
Offshore oil producer Talos Energy Inc, which hired divers and a cleanup crew to respond to an oil spill in Bay Marchand, said old pipelines damaged during the storm were apparently responsible.
The source of the Bay Marchand leak remains unknown, said Coast Guard spokesman Lieutenant John Edwards. A Coast Guard-led team “will be looking at all potential sources in order to ensure any future risk is mitigated,” he said.
The spill off the coast of Port Fourchon, Louisiana, had decreased substantially since it was first discovered last week, Talos said. The company is not the owner of the pipelines and had ceased production operations in the area four years ago, spokesman Brian Grove said in a statement issued Sunday evening.
Divers at the site said the 1-foot-diameter pipeline was moved from a trench on the ocean floor at about 34 feet of depth and ruptured.
The area where the spill is located is a latticework of old pipelines, plugged wells and abandoned platforms left behind by decades of oil and gas drilling, the Associated Press reported on Saturday.
An offshore well belonging to S2 Energy was discharging oil about five miles (8 km) away from the Bay Marchand site, the Coast Guard said. The company told the Coast Guard it has secured the wellhead and it was no longer discharging oil.
S2 did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
The Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ) said it is working with the Coast Guard and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to require companies responsible for any spills to halt and clean up the discharges.
“If necessary USCG and/or the EPA can open federal funding streams to cover mitigation costs,” LDEQ said. (Reporting by Arpan Varghese and Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru, Gary McWilliams in Houston and Stephanie Kelly in New York Editing by Marguerita Choy and Matthew Lewis)
.
The Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ) said it is working with the Coast Guard and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to require companies responsible for any spills to halt and clean up the discharge
“If necessary USCG and/or the EPA can open federal funding streams to cover mitigation costs,” LDEQ said.
The EPA also said it was working with LDEQ and the Coast Guard.
“EPA has received 39 reports relative to the Hurricane in our Area Of Responsibility and has been evaluating those reports and following up with responsible parties to ensure they are being addressed,” the agency said in a statement.
(Reporting by Arpan Varghese and Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru, Gary McWilliams in Houston and Stephanie Kelly in New York Editing by Marguerita Choy, Matthew Lewis, Peter Graff)
The Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ) said it is working with the Coast Guard and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to require companies responsible for any spills to halt and clean up the discharge
“If necessary USCG and/or the EPA can open federal funding streams to cover mitigation costs,” LDEQ said.
The EPA also said it was working with LDEQ and the Coast Guard.
“EPA has received 39 reports relative to the Hurricane in our Area Of Responsibility and has been evaluating those reports and following up with responsible parties to ensure they are being addressed,” the agency said in a statement.
(Reporting by Arpan Varghese and Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru, Gary McWilliams in Houston and Stephanie Kelly in New York Editing by Marguerita Choy, Matthew Lewis, Peter Graff)
An oil leak off the coast of Louisiana spread for miles and no one knows who is responsible
When Talos Energy was notified of an oil spill off the Louisiana coast after Hurricane Ida, the company said, it sent a response team to the site
By Theresa Waldrop, CNN
Divers found the leaking pipe in Bay Marchand on Sunday, and on Monday, Talos put a containment dome on it, "which allows for the recovery of the release and transfer to surface vessels" of the oil, Talos said in a Tuesday release.
Talos says its operations were not the source of the oil. The company said it had been contacted because it was a prior lessee of the block where the leak was, although it had stopped production there in 2017 and had isolated its wells and removed all its infrastructure.
So who is responsible for the spill? That has yet to be determined.
And that shouldn't be a big surprise, given the number of old pipelines and abandoned wells in the Gulf of Mexico, according to Wilma Subra, a chemist and technical adviser at the nonprofit Louisiana Environmental Action Network.
"If you would look at all the pipelines, on a map, offshore, it looks like spaghetti, you just threw spaghetti in there. Pipelines everywhere, everywhere, everywhere," Subra said.
"There are lots of pipelines out there, lots of old pipelines as well as newer ones, and ones like Talos has gotten rid of over the years," she said.
According to a Government Accountability Office report released this year, "the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement has allowed the offshore oil and gas industry to leave 97% of pipelines (18,000 miles) on the seafloor when no longer in use," since the 1960s. "Pipelines can contain oil or gas if not properly cleaned in decommissioning."
The bureau "does not have a robust oversight process for ensuring the integrity of approximately 8,600 miles of active offshore oil and gas pipelines located on the seafloor of the Gulf of Mexico," nor does it have "robust process to address the environmental and safety risks posed by leaving decommissioned pipelines in place on the seafloor."
CNN reached out to the BSEE on Tuesday but did not immediately hear back.
In a letter to the GAO in response to its report and attached as an appendix to it, a Department of the Interior official wrote that the "Department generally agrees with the report findings."
"BSEE has begun to implement GAO's recommendation to further develop, finalize, and implement updated pipeline regulations to address long-standing limitations regarding its ability to (1) ensure active pipeline integreity and (2) address safety and environmental risks associated with decommissioning," wrote Laura Daniel-Davis, principal deputy assistant secretary, Land and Mineral Management, at the US Department of the Interior.
Members of the US Coast Guard National Strike Force who flew over the Bay Marchand area Sunday saw no visible discharge of oil in the area, according to Lt. John Edwards.
"What was observed was an unrecoverable, dissipating rainbow sheen that was approximately 11 miles in length," Edwards said in an email to CNN. The source of the discharge is unknown, though, he said.
Talos said it observed pipelines owned by other companies that were likely impacted by Ida, including a 12-inch pipe that it says appeared to the source of the release.
"Talos conducted both physical inspections and subsea sonar scans that confirmed Talos assets were not the source or cause of the release," the company said.
Finding the responsible party will be part of the investigation, Coast Guard Petty Officer Gabriel Wisdom said.
Talos said it is working with the Coast Guard and other state and federal agencies to determine ownership of the damaged pipeline and to organize a coordinated response to the spill.
In the meantime, the USCG said it is "prioritizing" approximately 350 oil spill "incidents for further investigation by state, local, and federal authorities" in the wake of Hurricane Ida, which hit the gulf coast as a powerful Category 4 storm.
Those are incidents reported by the general public and range from "minor to potentially notable pollution reporting," Wisdom said.
While they could be duplicate reports of the same thing, "right now we treat them all individually," and they will all be inspected, he said.
For Subra, the Bay Marchand leak is an example of "the potential out there to happen every time there is a hurricane or even a weather front that disrupts the Gulf and disrupts the waters near the bottom" because of the numerous old pipelines and abandoned wells there, many that haven't been plugged, she said.
On the day Ida made landfall, more than 95% of the Gulf of Mexico's oil production facilities were shut down, regulators said.
The BSEE said Tuesday that its hurricane response team "continues to monitor offshore oil and gas operators in the Gulf as they return to platforms and rigs after the storm."
When Talos Energy was notified of an oil spill off the Louisiana coast after Hurricane Ida, the company said, it sent a response team to the site
.
© Satellite image © 2021 Maxar Technologies Oil slicks on the water near the East Timbalier Island National Wildlife Refuge and the area south of Port Fourchon, Louisiana.
By Theresa Waldrop, CNN
Divers found the leaking pipe in Bay Marchand on Sunday, and on Monday, Talos put a containment dome on it, "which allows for the recovery of the release and transfer to surface vessels" of the oil, Talos said in a Tuesday release.
Talos says its operations were not the source of the oil. The company said it had been contacted because it was a prior lessee of the block where the leak was, although it had stopped production there in 2017 and had isolated its wells and removed all its infrastructure.
So who is responsible for the spill? That has yet to be determined.
And that shouldn't be a big surprise, given the number of old pipelines and abandoned wells in the Gulf of Mexico, according to Wilma Subra, a chemist and technical adviser at the nonprofit Louisiana Environmental Action Network.
"If you would look at all the pipelines, on a map, offshore, it looks like spaghetti, you just threw spaghetti in there. Pipelines everywhere, everywhere, everywhere," Subra said.
"There are lots of pipelines out there, lots of old pipelines as well as newer ones, and ones like Talos has gotten rid of over the years," she said.
According to a Government Accountability Office report released this year, "the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement has allowed the offshore oil and gas industry to leave 97% of pipelines (18,000 miles) on the seafloor when no longer in use," since the 1960s. "Pipelines can contain oil or gas if not properly cleaned in decommissioning."
The bureau "does not have a robust oversight process for ensuring the integrity of approximately 8,600 miles of active offshore oil and gas pipelines located on the seafloor of the Gulf of Mexico," nor does it have "robust process to address the environmental and safety risks posed by leaving decommissioned pipelines in place on the seafloor."
CNN reached out to the BSEE on Tuesday but did not immediately hear back.
In a letter to the GAO in response to its report and attached as an appendix to it, a Department of the Interior official wrote that the "Department generally agrees with the report findings."
"BSEE has begun to implement GAO's recommendation to further develop, finalize, and implement updated pipeline regulations to address long-standing limitations regarding its ability to (1) ensure active pipeline integreity and (2) address safety and environmental risks associated with decommissioning," wrote Laura Daniel-Davis, principal deputy assistant secretary, Land and Mineral Management, at the US Department of the Interior.
Members of the US Coast Guard National Strike Force who flew over the Bay Marchand area Sunday saw no visible discharge of oil in the area, according to Lt. John Edwards.
"What was observed was an unrecoverable, dissipating rainbow sheen that was approximately 11 miles in length," Edwards said in an email to CNN. The source of the discharge is unknown, though, he said.
Talos said it observed pipelines owned by other companies that were likely impacted by Ida, including a 12-inch pipe that it says appeared to the source of the release.
"Talos conducted both physical inspections and subsea sonar scans that confirmed Talos assets were not the source or cause of the release," the company said.
Finding the responsible party will be part of the investigation, Coast Guard Petty Officer Gabriel Wisdom said.
Talos said it is working with the Coast Guard and other state and federal agencies to determine ownership of the damaged pipeline and to organize a coordinated response to the spill.
In the meantime, the USCG said it is "prioritizing" approximately 350 oil spill "incidents for further investigation by state, local, and federal authorities" in the wake of Hurricane Ida, which hit the gulf coast as a powerful Category 4 storm.
Those are incidents reported by the general public and range from "minor to potentially notable pollution reporting," Wisdom said.
While they could be duplicate reports of the same thing, "right now we treat them all individually," and they will all be inspected, he said.
For Subra, the Bay Marchand leak is an example of "the potential out there to happen every time there is a hurricane or even a weather front that disrupts the Gulf and disrupts the waters near the bottom" because of the numerous old pipelines and abandoned wells there, many that haven't been plugged, she said.
On the day Ida made landfall, more than 95% of the Gulf of Mexico's oil production facilities were shut down, regulators said.
The BSEE said Tuesday that its hurricane response team "continues to monitor offshore oil and gas operators in the Gulf as they return to platforms and rigs after the storm."
No comments:
Post a Comment