Louisiana Oil Leak: Potential Impact to Animals, Coast

An oil pipeline leak that has dispersed about 1.1 million gallons into the Gulf of Mexico could become a greater hazard to wildlife and the general ecosystem if it moves closer to the Louisiana shore, analysts told Newsweek.

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 about 8:10 a.m. ET November 16, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said in an incident report.

The rupture was thought to have occurred about 19 miles from the Mississippi River Delta. A flyover at 1 p.m. the same day recorded an oil slick 3-4 miles wide.

The U.S. Coast Guard, the lead agency investigating the spill, said on Sunday that remote-operated vehicles were unable to detect the exact location of the leak along the MPOG pipeline. It is thought to have occurred somewhere near Plaquemines Parish, southeast of New Orleans.

The pipeline was reportedly shut off on Thursday, and flyovers on Friday showed the oil slick moving southwest away from the Louisiana shoreline. Oil sheen was spotted on the surface on Saturday and Sunday.

Newsweek reached out to the Coast Guard and NOAA via email on Wednesday for any updates.

The leak presently pales in comparison to the largest marine oil spill in history that occurred in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, when the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, operated by BP, exploded and sank, killing 11 workers and leaking about 210 million gallons of oil into the water.

Oil dispersed during rough weather

Nancy Kinner, director of coastal research response at the University of New Hampshire, returned from the MPOG spill this week.

She told Newsweek via phone that she was there as part of a project with NOAA, evaluating new sensing technology for oil spills.

"We went out on Sunday and there was really only one patch of very thin sheen with some tar balls that we saw," Kinner said. "It was enough for what we were testing."

One notable difference between this leak and Deepwater is the environment in which this one was detected. Weather conditions were stormy and seas were rough for about two days post-release, she said.

"That makes for a situation where any oil [that] is present starts getting what we call mechanically dispersed, which means the waves begin to turn that oil up," Kinner added.

Christopher D'Elia, dean and professor of the College of the Coast & Environment at Louisiana State University, studies nutrient dynamics in aquatic systems and coral reef ecology.

"The Gulf is adapted to oil spills in the sense that there's a lot of oil seeps around the Gulf, and that leads to us having a population of bacteria that is pre-adapted to metabolize it," D'Elia told Newsweek via phone.

Wildlife, shoreline are top priorities

"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," said Kristen Monsell, an attorney and director of the Center for Biological Diversity's oceans program.

Kinner said that the rough environmental conditions that occurred in the 48 hours following the MPOG leak can lessen the direct impact of surface oiling, such as reducing the number of birds being covered in oil or sea creatures inhaling oil when coming up to the surface to breathe. The way the spill has dispersed might be a positive development for sea animals.

"I'm not advocating it's a good thing because any spill is bad, but the extent of its impact can become more limited when you don't have thick film on the surface for birds, mammals.

"The extent to which the damage occurs can be more limited in scope—not if you're the animal impacted, but the overall impact may be more limited."

The response to any spill includes assessments of animals injured or killed.

"Bigger critters don't really adapt," D'Elia said. "It interferes with feeding, lung infections, reproduction. That's not something you really can adapt to, especially over a short period of time."

The ecosystem beyond animals can also be affected, D'Elia said.

As the oil moves closer to shore, it can negatively affect marshes and wetland while increasing erosion. Smaller fish close to shore that use areas as nursery grounds could also suffer.

Following Deepwater, NOAA said that a variety of sea turtles (Kemp's ridley, green, loggerhead, hawksbill and leatherback) were affected. Many suffered movement restrictions, exhaustion, exposure to harsh temperatures, and were made vulnerable to predators.

Many also ingested oil or oil-contaminated prey and water, leading to potentially toxic effects. More than 300 oiled sea turtles were rescued from offshore areas.

Exposed dolphins in Barataria Bay and Mississippi Sound also suffered significant health effects, including lung disease from inhalation and aspiration of oil, impaired stress response, and compromised immune function. The exposure might have led to increased infection and disease.

Deepwater explosion aftermath

Kinner and D'Elia were at the scene of the Deepwater spill more than a decade ago, about 41 miles off the Louisiana shoreline, which lasted 87 days.

"The key thing to remember is these spills are all different and unique," Kinner said. "Deepwater was a continuous release for a long time, 80-plus days. So even if the release itself had been smaller, that continuous nature makes it a very much more difficult and problematic situation because it keeps on going.

"This spill appears to have been a single release, in that for some given period of time and finite. That's one big difference."

D'Elia was heavily involved during the response to the Deepwater Horizon leak in the Macondo Prospect, which isn't that far away from the new spill.

While he acknowledges 1.1 million gallons is a lot, it massively pales in comparison to Macondo, which ultimately led to roughly 3.2 million barrels of oil leaked, at 42 gallons per barrel.

About half of that spill was also natural gas, he added, which was "really fortunate" as opposed to being all crude oil. It allowed bacteria to quickly metabolize. And while there was a dramatic effect on deep-sea coral in the immediate vicinity, its broader effect was relatively small but not nonexistent.

"Charismatic animals," he said, including dolphins, turtles, birds and other mammals, were affected near the Louisiana coast and likely still are today.

"Deepwater taught us a lot about what injuries occur to organisms, about effective methods of response and remote sensing," said Kinner, referring to satellite imagery and remote sensing during the past 13 or so years to detect oil on the surface.

Another positive development has been knowledge regarding marine mammals injured directly by oil.

"We now know from Deepwater that [mammals] do surface and it impacts them," she said. "In this particular case, people are also thinking about marine mammals in the area and slicks. Limited slicks and almost nonexistent slicks are a good thing, it's good for those mammals."

Pipelines still 'safest' transport method

After stopping the leak, the next step is cleanup or mitigation to the fullest extent possible, then damage assessment. The Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) is the process that NOAA and other trustees use to study the effects of incidents like this on fish, wildlife, surrounding habitats, and public use of those resources.

Even after well-publicized spills the past couple decades, D'Elia said that pipelines remain the safest way to transport oil and are "many times safer" than ships, rail and trucks. There is a robust system of pipelines around Louisiana and Texas, for example.

He referenced a study by the Manhattan Institute published in 2013 that came to the same determination, that pipelines are the premiere method of oil transportation.

"However, they are also unaware of what a great problem abandoned pipelines pose," D'Elia said. "Many of them were operated by corporate entities that no longer exist, so it is impossible to impose the 'polluter pays' rule. Fortunately, in the case of the present spill, it is easy to identify the responsible party."