E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSS
Waterkeeper Alliance says this image was taken on Dec. 30, 2011, and shows an oil sheen from the Taylor Energy platform that was destroyed by Hurricane Ivan in 2004.
Environmental groups on Thursday sued an oil company over the pace of its cleanup of a Gulf of Mexico spill that continues seven years after it was triggered by Hurricane Ivan in 2004.
"The plaintiffs filed suit to stop the spill and lift the veil of secrecy surrounding Taylor oil’s seven-year-long response and recovery operation," Marc Yaggi, executive director of Waterkeeper Alliance, said in a statement announcing the lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in New Orleans. "Neither the government nor Taylor will answer basic questions related to the spill response, citing privacy concerns."
Justin Bloom, a Waterkeeper Alliance director, told msnbc.com that the group had made Freedom of Information Act requests for documentation "and ultimately the Coast Guard has refused to provide us documents citing the Privacy Act."
The groups allege that Taylor Energy, based in New Orleans, has violated the Clean Water Act provisions that require public participation in any enforcement of the law.
"Without details about Taylor’s response to this crisis," the lawsuit states, "it is impossible for members of the public to assess the risk that similar events will cause additional multi-year spills, including spills from higher-pressure wells in deeper water."
Taylor Energy did not immediately return a msnbc.com call for comment, but it has acknoweldged the spill and has been working with the U.S. Coast Guard and federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to plug it.
Three containment domes had "substantially reduced" sheening over time, it stated on June 8, 2010, after the BP spill drew attention to the area.
The gulf is home to hundreds of oil wells and platforms, both active and capped, and some of which periodically leak. In addition, the gulf and other bodies of ocean regularly see natural oil seeps.
Waterkeeper said it estimates that hundreds of gallons of oil have been leaking from the Taylor site each day for the last seven years.
The Coast Guard, however, said the average amount of oil leaking from the site is 7.5 gallons per day. Oil sheens from the site have been "minimal" and have never made landfall, according to the Coast Guard, which says a total of 12,720 gallons of oil have been reported from daily observations since the spill started in 2004.
"The sheen size of a few gallons (in volume as observed over the sheen dimensional area) has been too thin of an oil film to warrant offshore recovery operations," the Coast Guard said in a statement.
The plaintiffs acknowledge that the spill is tiny next to the BP spill of 200 million gallons but, argued Bloom, the Taylor spill "is emblematic of a broken system, where oil production is prioritized over concerns for human health and the environment."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
More content from msnbc.com and NBC News
Leave a Comment:
Nothing better than swimming in oily waters and breathing polluted air. When my kids get older wont i be so proud to tell them how in just a few short years the leaders of our great country tried to bankrupt us, poison our ground water supply, deplete the oil reserves and poison the waters of the oceans around the world.
Yeah it makes me proud...
Have you had enough people? Are you sick of being poisoned by Corporations and our so-called Government that's supposed to regulate these criminals? Are you going to sit around and watch as death comes to not only our living environment but the people that depend on that living environment for everything that WE need to LIVE?
Childhood diseases on the rise, chronic diseases on the rise, infectious diseases on the rise, autoimmune diseases on the rise. The CDC in a recently released report confirms that the chemical BPA (I think Patent owned by Union Carbide Corporation- You know the SAME Corporation that caused the mass-murder of 25,000 in Bhopal India) was found in 95% of study participants urine. Now BPA is a KNOWN TOXIN and is just ONE of the many chemicals ALLOWED on the market TO KILL PEOPLE!!!
Bought and paid for Politicians on BOTH SIDES that are letting the oil and petrochemical industries infect ALL of us with know carcinogens. BPA only...who knows???
Breast Cancer UP 18% between 1975-2003
Prostate Cancer UP 85% between 1975-2002 (Better detection BUT higher mortality rate)
Impaired Fertility UP 20% in the last decade
Ovarian Disease UP 5%-10% of ALL women of reproductive age.
Insulin Resistance UP 20% of ALL Americans
Recurrent Miscarriages UP 1% in all couples trying to conceive. (I've read as much as 25% increase but because of the devastating effects of miscarriage and the possible short length of conception before the miscarriage, most are not reported to any doctor.
And this is just ONE Government approved chemical being used to POISON America for a $$$ BUCK. The oil and petrochemical industrial complex can only be eliminated/regulated by FORCE. FIGHT to LIVE! As a Veteran of this country, I'm ready to lock and load. Are you ready to fight? Are you ready to die? WE need to come together as one unit and take the FIGHT to Washington.
If just 1/3 of us went to DC, 100 Million Strong, you would see the lobbyists and politicians evacuate DC because for the most part they are ALL YELLOW BELLY COWARDS.
OCCUPY DC...Your damn right!
Oil companies have the politicians in their pockets and they get away with polluting and making big profits. Screw the oil companies and the politicians.
The rich companies and politicians will always screw the american people.
You people don't get it. Excessive regulation costs jobs! If you force oil companies to investigate and clean up their messes through regulation, they'll need to fire people to get it done. After all, they will regulate themselves if left alone to do so. This article proves it!
This is a non-story.
The leek is estimated to be 7.5 gallons per day? A 2003 National Academy of Sciences report estimated that the many natural seeps in the Gulf of Mexico together emit an average of about 2,762 barrels per day ( or approximately 120,000 gallons per day).
7.5 gallons isn't even news worthy. Please give me back the five minutes of my life I spent reading this.
Sorry not 120,000. It is 85,000.
Oil here to stay till it's exausted! I'm sure that's true...and I recently saw a program on that subject...Seem's the average item in your grocery store travel's a wee bit over 2'000 miles to get there...add in the gas for that transportation from farm to shelf..gas for tractor's and petroleum products used in agriculture like pesticides and we may barely have enough oil to continue to produce and feed the billion's of people worlwide, that are dependent on oil for their food! The population exsplosion in the last hundred year's was created by the fact that the internal cumbustion motor allowed us to feed more people thus more people were created....and when the oil runs out....they WILL starve! That's millions of people starving! So you see it is rapidly becoming a question of what do we use the remaining oil for...agriculture or Billy Bob driving around trying to look cool in that big hemi truck? Let us not forget that our government will be wanting a lot of that oil for military need's and equipment,planes, ships,etc...Billy Bob MIGHT get his ration of one or two gallon's a month at heaven only know's what price! Seems this isn't far off either five maybe ten year's...here's the clincher...they said this is a water based society...and the clean water situation is even worse!I might humbly add nobody's pumping out clean fresh filtered air...(that's the trees job right) Keep driving...and don't worry bout it (point your eye's to the center ring and ignore those corporation's behind the curtain) It's ciggerettes causing that bad air..and sugar and obesity that are your biggest danger....you better NOT believe it!
YEH! And people are pissed cause Obama wants more study on a pipeline down the middle of the country! GET REAL PEOPLE! You want a few thousand jobs but NO! you don't think of the environment! jeSus! IDIOTS!
CHINA'S days on the cheap are coming to an end! So the price on our environment in the U.S. should not be taken for GRANTED! We should learn from this oil spill and NOT be so ready DRILL AND SPILL!