NUKE FLUSH

IAEA seeks Japan transparency in release of Fukushima water


TOKYO (AP) — Experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency asked Japan on Tuesday for full and detailed information about a plan to release treated but still radioactive water from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant into the ocean.

The three-member team, which is assisting Japan with the planned release, met Tuesday with government officials to discuss technical details before traveling to the Fukushima Daiichi plant for an on-site examination Wednesday. They will meet with Japanese experts through Friday.

Lydie Evrard, head of the IAEA's Department of Nuclear Safety and Security, said transparency and a full disclosure about the water and its treatment is key to ensuring safety for the project, which is expected to take decades.

The government and the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, announced plans in April to start releasing the water in the spring of 2023 so hundreds of storage tanks at the plant can be removed to make room for other facilities needed for its decommissioning.

The idea has been fiercely opposed by fishermen, local residents and Japan’s neighbors, including China and South Korea.

TEPCO plans to send the water through an undersea tunnel and discharge it from a location about 1 kilometer (0.6 mile) away from the coastal power plant after further treating and diluting it with large amounts of seawater to bring it below releasable limits.

Evrard said her team wants to monitor the release to make sure it meets IAEA radiation and environmental safety standards, and proposed a discussion of monitoring methods and other details.

Government and TEPCO officials say tritium, which is not harmful in small amounts, cannot be removed from the water, but all other isotopes selected for treatment can be reduced to safe levels. Controlled release of tritium from normal nuclear plants is a routine global practice, officials say.

IAEA and Japanese officials on Tuesday discussed tritium monitoring methods.

Japan has requested IAEA’s assistance to ensure the discharge meets safety standards and to gain the understanding of the international community.

Trade and industry minister Hiroshi Kajiyama told reporters Tuesday that IAEA's involvement will help build trust in the Japanese effort. He said Japan will fully cooperate.

A massive earthquake and tsunami in 2011 severely damaged three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, causing contaminated cooling water to leak. The water has been stored in about 1,000 tanks which the plant's operator says will reach their capacity late next year.

Japanese officials say disposal of the water is required for the decommissioning of the plant, and that its release into the ocean is the most realistic option.

Mari Yamaguchi, The Associated Press

SWITCH THEM WITH SCOTUS

Mexico Supreme Court rules abortion criminalization is unconstitutional

Mexico's Supreme Court has unanimously ruled that penalizing abortion is unconstitutional, in a decision expected to set precedent for the legal status of abortion nationwide.

© Ulises Ruiz/AFP/Getty Images Activists supporting the decriminalization of abortion in Mexico march in Guadalajara, Mexico, on September 28, 2019.

By Karol Suarez and Sharif Paget, CNN

"Today is a historic day for the rights of all Mexican women," said Supreme Court Chief Justice Arturo Zaldivar.

The court ruled Tuesday against a law in the state of Coahuila, which threatened women who undergo abortions with up to three years prison and a fine.

The law, according to Coahuila Penal Code Article 196, allowed prosecution of both a woman seeking an abortion and the person who "causes her to have an abortion with her consent."

"I'm against stigmatizing those who make this decision [to undergo an abortion] which I believe is difficult to begin with, due to moral and social burdens. It shouldn't be burdened as well by the law. Nobody gets voluntarily pregnant thinking about getting an abortion later," said Supreme Court Justice Ana Margarita Ríos Farjat, one of only three women among the court's 11 justices.

The top court's decision against such penalization is "a historic step," Justice Luis Maria Aguilar said.

"Never again will a woman or a person with the capacity to carry a child be criminally prosecuted," he added. "Today the threat of imprisonment and stigma that weigh on people who freely decide to terminate their pregnancy are banished."

Elsewhere in Latin America, Argentina's Senate approved a bill to legalize abortion in December 2020. The Senate voted 38-29 to give millions of women access to legal terminations under the law supported by President Alberto Fernández.

The vote comes as US states just north of the border move to restrict abortion access, most notably in Texas

Volkswagen signals higher transition cost from autonomous shift


By Christoph Steitz and Jan Schwartz

© Reuters/Fabian Bimmer FILE PHOTO: 

Volkswagen CEO, Diess, chairman of the supervisory board Poetsch, Lower Saxony's PM Weil and head of VW works council, Osterloh, address the media in Wolfsburg

MUNICH (Reuters) - Volkswagen may have to spend more to deliver its planned transformation, the German carmaker's supervisory board chairman said, particularly a shift towards autonomous driving.

The world's second-largest automaker, which plans to invest 150 billion euros ($178 billion) in its business by 2025, has repeatedly said that it can fund the transition towards electric vehicles and autonomous driving based on current cash flows.

"We are in a phase where substantial free cash flows are being generated. That means we can pay out good dividends as well as comfortably fund our business going forward," Hans Dieter Poetsch told Reuters at the IAA Munich car show.

"But of course we are in an environment in which we cannot rule out that larger sums, for example in the field of autonomous driving, have to be invested," Poetsch, who is also chief executive of Porsche SE, which is Volkswagen's largest shareholder.

"It is therefore recommendable to think one or two steps ahead," Poetsch added, without specifying details.

Toyota Motor Corp said on Tuesday it expects to spend more than $13.5 billion by 2030 to develop batteries and a battery supply system as the world's largest automaker moves to deliver its first all-electric line-up next year.

Poetsch declined to comment on a potential initial public offering of luxury car division Porsche AG, which sources told Reuters in May is a scenario Volkswagen has contemplated should it require more money to pay for its strategy.

"From today's point of view our financial situation is relatively comfortable. And as part of our planning rounds, which we are holding each year, we are regularly reviewing where there is a need," Poetsch said.

Analysts reckon that a partial IPO of Porsche, speculation over which has regularly lifted Volkswagen's stock, could value the unit at 45 billion euros to 90 billion, a major lever Volkswagen could pull to fill its coffers.

"The clever finance executive will always have a list with options for how to provide extended financial flexibility for the company," Poetsch added.

($1 = 0.8421 euros)

(Reporting by Christoph Steitz and Jan Schwartz; Editing by Emma Thomasson and Alexander Smith)

Are There No Prisons? Are There No Workhouses? The Knowledge of Charles Dickens



​Charles Dickens knew poverty and child labor. He knew these things.

Raised in a middle-class home, Charles was educated, not merely schooled. In fact, his formal schooling was mediocre, like most of the limited formal education available in early 19th century England. He learned anyway, because of the learning that comes by osmosis from a family in a literate household. And above all, he learned because he read voraciously.

And then, before he had a chance to find his own voice, disaster.

Charles' father, a spendthrift clerk, is shut up in the Marshalsea, London's infamous debtors' prison. Young Charles has been sent out to work in a soul-destroying job, pasting labels and paper lids onto jars of shoe polish.

He pastes a paper lid. He sticks it on. It demands just enough attention to stop his mind from wandering. And too little to be stimulating. He takes another lid. He picks up the fishy-smelling pastebrush. Again. And again. And again. And again.

He is only 12 years old.

But Charles Dickens is old enough to understand the implications of this turn of events: His future is destroyed. His life of joyful learning has given way to ten hours a day in a crumbling, rat-infested warehouse, doing work that is precise enough to demand his full attention, and mind-numbing enough to stifle his imagination. There is no hope of escape. No place to go. Nothing to hope for.

And yet, as we know, escape he did.

Was Charles liberated from the boot-blacking factory because of his superior intelligence? No. Because of his superior education? No.
Because powerful Victorians saw the light, and freed children from exploitation and misery? No. Because he worked hard at his humble job? Emphatically, no. There is no reward for hard work, only punishment for falling behind, for any reason.

Charles is made free because his family is middle class: His father came into a large inheritance from Charles' great-grandmother. He is sprung from prison, and so is young Charles.

But the adult Charles Dickens knew that he was both fortunate and privileged. He knew that most people were not. His anger at selfishness, greed, and callousness shines through his novels: What more bitter a statement than Scrooge's vicious response to those who solicit a charitable donation from him: Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses? When the Christmas spirits educate Scrooge by showing him historical context--past, present, future-- nobody is made more happy than the enlightened Ebenezer Scrooge himself. He's delirious. His excitement, interpreted so beautifully onscreen in 1951 by Alastair Sim in Scrooge (US: A Christmas Carol), in a performance that has never been bettered. But then Sim knew something or childhood misery himself. For the rest of his life, he tried to rescue other lads from it, starting with George Cole.

Charles Dickens needed no such liberation of the soul. His concern and compassion for others came through in his lifetime, not only in his fiction, but also in his cogent criticisms of mid-Victorian society, including education. He attacked as the heartless attitudes of the day evinced in the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act, which forced the poor to choose between destitution, and prison-like workhouses where their families were forced apart.

He also attacked soulless factory-like teaching methods. Dickens supported the efforts of working men to pursue a life of the mind, but he offered fewer prescriptions for good education than he did criticisms, perhaps sensing (as do those of us who follow in his footsteps today) that good teaching is really about caring and sharing one's own life of the literate mind, not obeying bureaucratic instructions.

In every way, Charles Dickens rose above his lower middle-class circumstances to embrace a generous vision of life, precisely because he had stared into the void of a miserable, meaningless existence at a vulnerable age. Perhaps because, even after the family's windfall came, his own mother, shockingly to us, pondered leaving him in the factory. A miserable youth and successful adulthood do not necessarily lead to empathy. But a good education should. Dickens believed in education because he did not want others to suffer as he had. Above all, as he knew, education ought to mean saving oneself and others from learning the hard way.

There is a reason his voice is still relevant today. Indeed, it is growing more relevant than at any time in the past century. Confronting Scrooge (and us) with ignorance and want in the guise of two wretched children, Dickens does not offer as a solution prisons and workhouses, joyless instruction and punishment by bureaucracy. He offers aid and education, not for the few, but for all. His message is both simple and complex, and it is urgent.

Enjoy this? Join Dr. Annette Laing, the renegade historian and Brit in the US at Non-Boring History (for adults. Don't tell the kids, or they'll want to read it too) US and UK History, the interesting bits, for busy adults who are tired of doomscrolling internet clickbait while waiting at the doctor's office or in a queue. 

Few U.S. Workers Know About COVID Sick Leave Protections

© Provided by HealthDay

© Provided by HealthDay

TUESDAY, Sept. 7, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- While the United States is one of the only developed nations without universal sick leave, workers with COVID-19 can take paid emergency leave -- at least for now.

Problem is: Fewer than half of U.S. workers know it's available, according to a new study. And, the researchers add, cases of sick employees who couldn't take time off have tripled during the pandemic.

"When the government does not ensure that people have access to paid sick leave, people go to work sick," said study author Nicolas Ziebarth, an associate professor at Cornell University's Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy. "And when you have a virus going on – it could be the flu or coronavirus, it doesn't really matter -- then the sick people at work infect coworkers who go on to infect other people."

In March 2020, the U.S. government introduced the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) to provide federally funded emergency paid sick leave due to COVID-19.

The researchers analyzed data from a nationwide survey conducted between October and December of last year and found that about 8 million U.S. workers took advantage of paid leave in the policy's first six to eight months.

The study found that part-time and foreign-born workers were most likely to be unaware of the program. Awareness of the COVID sick leave was especially low among service and hospitality workers.

Women had a 69% higher risk of unmet sick leave needs than men, which suggests that universal paid leave can improve gender equity, according to Ziebarth.

"One reason the unmet needs for women is so much higher is that they are overrepresented in the hospitality and service industries," Ziebarth said in a university news release. "Another is that women tend to have a higher burden of work. They are still more likely to be the primary caregiver for children and have to balance paid work, chores and child care."

Providing paid sick leave has broader benefits for society, he added. If an infection spreads to kids in the household and they go to school sick because adults can't afford to stay home with them, disease spreads quickly.

"The point is that you have more virus infections in the population, which is bad for population health," Ziebarth said.

His team's findings were recently published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

A previous study by Ziebarth found that FFCRA prevented 15,000 new infections a day in March and April 2020. The policy, which was set to expire in March 2021, was extended through the end of September.

More information

To learn more about the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, go to the U.S. Department of Labor.

SOURCE: Cornell University, news release, Aug. 30, 2021

U.S. workers are changing jobs more often and demanding better wages -NY Fed survey

By Jonnelle Marte

© Reuters/ANDREW KELLY FILE PHOTO: Signage for a job fair is seen on 5th Avenue after the release of the jobs report in Manhattan, New York City

(Reuters) - More U.S. workers are switching jobs and asking for higher wages as the labor market continues to heal from the crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic, according to a survey released Tuesday by the New York Federal Reserve.

Expectations about the labor market also continued to improve, with the expected likelihood of receiving a job offer in the next four months and the wages expected for that offer both rising, according to the report.

The share of workers who became unemployed in the previous four months dropped to 0.4% in July from 10.5% in July 2020 and is now below the 0.5% seen in November of 2019 before the pandemic. The percentage who moved to a new employer rose to 5.9% in July from 4.4% a year earlier.

The survey, which polled about 1,000 consumers about how their finances changed over the past four months, illustrates how much stronger the labor market is than a year ago, when millions more were unemployed because of the coronavirus pandemic and vaccines were not yet available to the general public.

But the latest data released by the Labor Department last week showed the jobs recovery may be stalling amid a resurgence of COVID-19 infections, driven by the Delta variant of the virus.

The New York Fed survey showed workers also raised their expectations for how much they should be paid. The average reservation wage, or the minimum annual wage consumers said they needed before they would even consider accepting a job offer, increased sharply from a year earlier to $68,954 in July 2021.

That was down from the series high of $71,403 reached in March of this year, but still above the $64,226 seen in July of 2020. The increase was largest for workers above age 45 and for people without college degrees.

(Reporting by Jonnelle Marte; Editing by Andrea Ricci)

Volvo workers in Virginia say the labor shortage helped them score a 12% pay rise: report

gdean@insider.com (Grace Dean) 

 Business across the US are struggling to find workers, causing some to slash operating hours, limit operations, and raise prices. Adam Ihse/TT News Agency/via Reuters

Volvo workers in Virginia said the labor shortage helped them get a 12% pay rise, AP reported.

Striking workers rejected two offers from Volvo before reaching a better deal, per AP.

The labor shortage is forcing some companies to hike wages and improve benefits.

Workers at Volvo's largest truck-manufacturing plant got a 12% pay rise spread over six years, and say it's partly thanks to a US labor shortage that has left companies scrambling to retain staff, according to a report by AP.

The 2,900 union members - nearly 90% of total staff at the New River Valley assembly plant in Dublin, Virginia - went on strike in the spring after negotiations with Volvo failed to produce a new contract, AP reported.

The automaker offered pay raises, signing bonuses, and lower-priced healthcare to the striking workers, AP reported, but workers rejected this proposal and a second one, despite leaders from the United Auto Workers union telling them to accept.

Workers eventually accepted a third offer that included better benefits, AP reported. They will now get 12% pay raises over the six-year contract, the publication reported.

The deal will also phase many union workers out of a two-tier pay scale that gives long-time workers more money, and instead give all current workers the top hourly wage of $30.92 after six years, AP reported.

Workers will get a six-year price freeze on healthcare premiums, the publication reported.

Workers felt more confident demanding a better contract because Volvo was trying to fill vacancies at the plant, Mitchell Smith, regional director for the United Auto Workers in the South, told the publication.

Volvo told AP that it had struggled to find workers for the Dublin plant, but said that it offered a strong pay and benefits package "that also safeguards our competitiveness in the market."

Insider contacted Volvo and United Auto Workers for comment, but did not immediately hear back.

Travis Wells, a forklift driver at the plant, told AP that staff were "emboldened by the labor shortage."

"The cost of recruiting and training a new workforce would've cost Volvo 10 times what a good contract would have," he said.

Businesses across the US are struggling to find workers, causing some to slash operating hours, limit operations, and raise prices.

Other union officials said that the labor shortage had helped staff get better contracts elsewhere, too. Martin Rosas, a union leader for the United Food and Commercial Workers in Kansas, Missouri, and parts of Oklahoma, told AP that some meat-packing workers had negotiated pay rises for some skilled positions.

The labor shortage is putting more power into workers' hands because companies are desperate to recruit new employees and retain existing ones. Susan J. Schurman, a professor of labor studies at Rutgers University, told AP that this shortage had given bargaining power to workers at levels not seen since the 1980s.

Companies including McDonald's, Starbucks, and Chipotle have hiked up wages, while other companies have rolled out better benefits packages, such as improved healthcare, education benefits, and more bonuses.

Ted Cruz told the millions of Americans who lost their unemployment benefits on Labor Day to 'um, get a job?'

"Are there no prisons?" asked Scrooge. "And the Union workhouses?" demanded Scrooge. "Are they still in operation?"

insider@insider.com (Cheryl Teh) 

© Provided by Business Insider Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, asks a question during the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing on Tuesday, March 9, 2021. 

Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

Cruz tweeted "Um, get a job?" in response to news that unemployment benefits expired for jobless Americans.

Twitter users criticized Cruz for his insensitivity and his lack of understanding of the situation.

It is estimated that more than 7.5 million Americans were affected when three federal pandemic-aid programs ended.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz reacted to news that millions of Americans lost their unemployment benefits on Labor Day by telling those who are out of work to "get a job."

Cruz tweeted on Monday night, sharing an article by ABC News which carried the headline "Jobless Americans have few options as benefits expire."

"Um, get a job?" Cruz wrote in his tweet. "There are millions of vacancies, and small businesses across the Nation are desperate for workers."

Three federal unemployment-aid programs ended as of Monday, September 6. The programs are the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program, the Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation program, and a program that provided people with $300 a week in Federal Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation.

The programs were scheduled to end by Labor Day.

The ABC article that Cruz retweeted and critiqued reported that these very relief efforts allowed Americans who lost jobs during the pandemic to afford essentials like food, gas, and rent, and enabled them to pay their bills.

"The end of the pandemic unemployment benefits will be an abrupt jolt to millions of Americans who won't find a job in time for this arbitrary end to assistance," said Andrew Stettner, a senior fellow at think tank The Century Foundation, to ABC.

It is estimated that at least 7.5 million Americans lost their unemployment benefits over the weekend, per reporting from Insider's Juliana Kaplan and Joseph Zeballos-Roig.

Many Americans have been left in the lurch with their benefits expiring, per CNN. The news outlet interviewed a Detroit optician named April Stokes, who said she received $1,152 in unemployment benefits per week, but saw her "lifeline" evaporate over the weekend. Stokes has had difficulty finding a job in her area that will enable her to work around her children's schedules.

"The government is not leaving us with any options," Stokes told CNN. "There are a lot of single moms out here that are really panicking right now and don't know what to do."
Read the original arti

ECOCIDE
First-Ever Spill of 'Frankenstein Fuels' Occurred Last Year, Researchers Find

Molly Taft 


A new analysis takes a look at what the authors say is the environmental impact of the first-ever spill of a new kind of marine fuel oil. The fuel was developed in response to regulations intended to lower sulfur emissions from the dirty shipping industry but is raising more environmental questions as it’s more widely adopted.

© Photo: Gwendoline Defente/EMAE (AP) 

Oil leaks from the MV Wakashio, a bulk carrier ship that ran aground on a coral reef off the southeast coast of Mauritius, last August.

The study, published Tuesday in Marine Pollution Bulletin, looks into fuel spilled during the crash of the bulk carrier MV Wakashio, which ran aground on a coral reef off the Mauritian coast in July of 2020. About a month after the crash, the Wakashio began leaking oil from cracks in its hull. Satellite images showed dark plumes of fuel ballooning out into the crystal blue Mauritian coastline, which is home to a wide variety of marine life living on its coral reefs and in mangrove forests. Two weeks after the crash, the government declared a “state of environmental emergency.”

Since the crash, there has been heavy speculation that the Wakashio, which had 4,000 tons of fuel aboard, was carrying a new type of fuel that’s causing concern among the environmental community. The government of Mauritus’s murky response to the disaster included no analyses of the type of oil spilled, which fueled more speculation.

The new study confirms that a sample of residue from the coastline taken (8 km) from the wrecked ship was fuel from the ship and that it was the new type of low-sulfur fuel. “Since the grounding of the Wakashio on a coral reef, there has been much speculation in the media about what oil was spilled, including headlines about so-called ‘Frankenstein fuels’, so we wanted to obtain a sample for research and analysis,” the study’s lead author, Alan Scarlett, a research associate at Curtin University’s School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, said in a news release.

While it may sound like a cinematic exaggeration, “Frankenstein fuels” are a growing concern among those keeping an eye on the shipping industry’s environmental impact. The phrase was coined as a derogatory term to refer to what’s known as Very Low Sulfur Fuel Oil, or VLSFOs, a relatively new type of fuel blend that’s gaining prominence in ships across the world.

In January of 2020, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) instituted new regulations that required shipping companies to substantially lower the amount of sulfur in their fuels, to try and cut shipping’s whopping contribution to air pollution around the world. The industry began to quickly favor VLSFOs, thanks in large part to their lower price point compared to other options. VLSFOs, as the name suggests, have far less sulfur than the fuel traditionally used in shipping, and thus it fits the IMO’s new guidelines.

But since they’re such a new form of fuel, VLSFOs have raised a whole host of other chemical questions—and may help the shipping industry cut down on sulfur emissions while upping other harmful side effects. The Clean Arctic Alliance, a coalition of nonprofits that includes Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, and the World Wildlife Foundation, has sounded the alarm that heavy use of VLSFOs could make black carbon emissions from the shipping sector even more pronounced. (Black carbon, also known as plain old soot, is a greenhouse gas that experts say is incredibly damaging to sensitive environments—especially the Arctic—over the short term.)

The conversation around VLSFOs reached a head last August when the wreck of the Wakashio began leaking in Mauritius, and the new study provides some much-needed answers. First, some preliminary good news about this particular spill: in the sample of VLSFO collected from the ship’s wreck, researchers found lower levels of toxins dangerous to marine mammals than are usually present in traditional shipping fuels with higher concentrations of sulfur. Thus, “the impacts on marine organisms from exposure to toxic compounds in the oil may be less severe than with previous spills that involved older types of marine fuel oil,” Scarlett said.

But because VLSFOs are so new, Scarlett cautioned that this sample couldn’t paint a whole picture of the entire fuel class. “When we analysed several other Low Sulfur Fuel Oils, we found some contained higher concentrations of toxic components than the oil discharged in the Mauritius spill, so more research will be needed before we can conclude that all the oil types within this new class pose less of a threat to marine ecosystems than heavy fuel oils,” he said.

Ultimately, it’s crucial to research the impact of this fuel on marine environments as well as air pollution, as more and more ships use VLSFOs in accordance with the new standards.

“Unfortunately, oil spills from ships continue to be a frequent occurrence, so it is likely we will see further spills involving Very Low Sulfur Fuel Oils,” Scarlett said.

ECOCIDE

U.S. probing nearly 350 reports of oil spills in Gulf of Mexico after Hurricane Ida

By 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)

.

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

.

© 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."