An estimated 1.1 million gallons of oil have leaked into the Gulf of Mexico from a pipeline that flows into Louisiana, prompting a multi-agency response.
The Main Pass Oil Gathering Company, a subsidiary of the Houston, Texas-based Third Coast Infrastructure, which operates the pipeline, first reported a leak at around 8:10 a.m. ET on Thursday, November 16, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said in an incident report.
The rupture was thought to have occurred around 19 miles from the Mississippi River Delta, while a flyover at 1 p.m. the same day recorded an oil slick 3-4 miles wide.
The U.S. Coast Guard said the pipeline was shut off at 6:30 a.m. on Thursday. Subsequent flyovers on Friday found evidence that the oil slick was moving southwest away from the Louisiana shoreline, while oil sheen was spotted on the surface of the water on Saturday and Sunday.
A map produced by the NOAA gave a forecast trajectory of the slick as of 6 a.m. on Sunday, based on sightings during flyovers, showing the spilled oil arcing away from the Main Pass Oil Gathering Company (MPOG) pipeline before curving back slightly towards Port Fourchon.
While the discharge is thought to be much smaller than previous oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico, environmentalists have described the spill as "huge" and warned of an impact on local marine wildlife. The Coast Guard said there had so far been no reports of shoreline impacts.
Newsweek approached Third Coast via email for comment on Wednesday.
The National Transportation Safety Board said in a statement on Saturday that it was investigating the release, with a team of four people from the agency sent to "determine [the] probably cause of the leak."
The U.S. Coast Guard said on Sunday that remotely operated vehicles had yet to find the exact location of the leak along the pipeline, but is thought to have occurred somewhere near Plaquemines Parish, southeast of New Orleans.
It also noted that the exact volume of the discharge was as yet unknown; the estimate of 1.1 million gallons was formed through engineering calculations based on the volume of oil traveling through the MPOG pipeline at the time.
A unified command has been established to coordinate cleanup efforts, including the Coast Guard, MPOG and the Louisiana Oil Spill Coordinator's Office, along with other state and federal agencies.
The Coast Guard said three skimming vessels were working to recover oil on the surface of the water and that it "continues to oversee the coordinated effort to mitigate the impact of the oil discharge." It said MPOG had implemented an approved emergency response plan and had organized for private cleanup organizations to help with the recovery effort.
On Tuesday, Kristen Monsell, an attorney and director of the Center for Biological Diversity's oceans program, said: "Ocean wildlife will almost certainly pay a terrible price for this huge pipeline spill, which is less an accident than an entirely predictable consequence of offshore oil operations."
She added: "From dolphins to birds to rare whales, Gulf animals are under siege yet again from a spill-prone industry that puts profit ahead of everything."
It is not the first time the Gulf of Mexico has witnessed an oil spill. The largest ever occurred in 2010, when the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, operated by BP, exploded and sank, killing 11 workers and leaking around 210 million gallons of oil into the sea.
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Aleks Phillips is a Newsweek U.S. News Reporter based in London. His focus is on U.S. politics and the environment. ... Read more
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