Last week, I reported on a new leak east of the Mississippi River in an area known as Quarantine Bay. I mentioned that I contacted the State Police HazMat Unit as well as the National Response Team which works with the United States Coast Guard to investigate hazardous incidents. Well, I had to call them again. Why? Because this past October 23rd, I flew over that site once again and discovered that the source was still leaking. I was on yet another flyover to assess the impacts of BP’s drilling disaster in Louisiana’s West Bay. I will report more on that later. To view images of the leak on October 19th, click here. To view photos from this past see below: Nearly one week after initially spotting this leak and reporting it to the proper authorities, it continues to spew oil into Quarantine Bay. And today, I have some new, unfortunate information to share. This morning I made some follow-up calls to the authorities to see what action had been taken, if any. I found out from the Coast Guard that not only has this leak been going on since last week, but that the first report they ever received about this leak was on August 31st. It gets worse. According to the Coast Guard, “the leak is from an abandoned underwater oil pipeline and the State Department of Natural Resources is in charge of investigating it.” What does that even mean? Is the State only going to take action to stop the leak after they find the responsible party? Are they really actively investigating this? Obviously I have some more work to do to get to the bottom of this. As always, I’ll keep you posted.Jonathan Henderson is the Coastal Resiliency Orgainzer for GRN.
