Taylor / 23051 Chronic Leak Site in Gulf: Oil Analyzed

Back on September 15, a team from National Wildlife Federation piled onto a small boat on the Louisiana coast.  Their destination: the chronic leak site about 12 miles offshore where a cluster of wells operated by Taylor Energy has been steadily spilling oil into the Gulf since 2004.  Check out this aerial video of the site, shot by On Wings of Care on December 9, 2011.

Their objective: to collect samples of the Taylor oil slick for analysis, to see if it's chemically distinguishable from the oil that gushed from BP's infamous Macondo well about 30 miles away.  We wanted to know if other samples of oil collected in this region of the Gulf, on beaches and barrier islands and from slicks observed offshore, could possibly be coming from the Taylor site since it's a well-documented source of oil pollution. 

The upshot:  oil leaking from the Taylor site should not easily be confused with relatively unweathered oil from the Macondo disaster.  But it would be very helpful to collect more and better samples from the slicks being observed in the vicinity of the Macondo well site. [Read more....]

 [[Location: 28.938022, -88.970963]]

EOG Resources Pays for Damages in Pollution of PA Creek

Drilling company EOG Resources has agreed to pay a financial settlement to Pennsylvania's Fish and Boat Commission following accusations that their extraction operations in the Marcellus Shale formation resulted in the pollution of Little Laurel Run in Clearfield County, PA.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time EOG Resources has been forced to shell out for contaminating important trout streams in Pennsylvania, leaving many to again question the intrinsic "safety" of intensifying gas drilling operations in and around our nation's most prized natural areas.  

[[Location:40.9156130,-78.2489031]]

Gulf of Mexico Overflight Yesterday - Old Slicks, New Slicks

Jon Henderson of Gulf Restoration Network did an overflight over the Gulf yesterday, thanks to our Gulf Monitoring Consortium partner SouthWings. They documented two small slicks in Breton Sound, and a larger slicks from the Taylor Energy site where a cluster of hurricane-damaged wells have been leaking since 2004.  Read all about it and check out the excellent pics. 

Jon filed three reports with the National Response Center, as all citizens who witness a suspected oil or hazardous materials spill are encouraged to do.  His reports should appear soon in the SkyTruth Alerts system, which you can subscribe to if you'd like to get automatic notifications any time a spill is reported. But in the meantime you can see Jon's two Breton Sound reports here and here, and the Taylor report here.

Oil slick at Taylor Energy / 23051 chronic leak site in Gulf of Mexico, December 8, 2011. Photo courtesy Jon Henderson / Gulf Restoration Network.

Judging from the pics, it looks like both Breton Sound slicks are being caused by a slow point source of leakage underwater, probably on the seafloor.  The first is similar to what you'd see at a natural oil seep location; the second contains heavier brown material that suggests a larger/faster leak.  Given the maze of pipelines and abandoned wells on the seafloor in the Sound, both might be from leaking infrastructure.  We'll check the NRC to see if any potential responsible party has come forward. 

The slick at the Taylor Energy / 23051 site is similar to what we've been seeing since we first "discovered" this chronic leak in early 2010. A work boat of some kind is on the scene, but the Ocean Saratoga rig that was working to plug the leaking wells is obviously not. Apparently fixing these wells and stopping this leak isn't a high priority. Check out a chronology of information and observations related to this leak. You can monitor this location on the SkyTruth Alerts, or subscribe to get automatic notifications.


[[Location: 28.938022, -88.970963]]

Campos Basin Oil Spill, Brazil - Small Slick November 25

We've just processed an Envisat ASAR radar image of the Campos Basin that was taken on November 25.  As expected, it shows a much smaller apparent oil slick originating from the location of the SEDCO 706 drilling rig, operated for Chevron by Transocean, than we observed back on November 12:

Envisat ASAR satellite radar image taken November 25, 2011. Slicks are dark streaks and patches. Location of SEDCO 706 drill rig is marked. Image courtesy European Space Agency.

Surface wind speed over the leak site was good, about 5-15 knots (3-8 meters/sec), blowing from the north-northeast.  A very narrow slick about 120 meters wide and 50 kilometers long extends south from the rig location, covering about 6 square kilometers.  Assuming the slick is 1 micron thick, we estimate it holds about 1,584 gallons (38 barrels) of oil.

There are other small slicks in the area to the west and southwest of the Chevron leak site.  Some of these may be from natural oil seeps in the basin, other sources of natural surfactant such as phytoplankton, or leaks and spills from vessels and other offshore facilities.


[[Location: -21.901,-39.822]]

Campos Basin Oil Spill, Brazil - Slicks Dissipating?

Envisat ASAR image of Campos Basin taken November 22, 2011. Surface winds too strong to reliably detect thin oil slicks. Bright spots are vessels and oil platforms. Image courtesy European Space Agency.

Today's Envisat ASAR satellite radar image of the Campos Basin, covering the location of the Chevron / Transocean oil spill, shows no sign of an oil slick. It was taken at about 9:30 am local time.

However, the wind speed was fairly strong in the area at the time. According to the satellite scatterometer data collected by the ASCAT system, surface winds were blowing at 15-25 knots (8-13 meters per second). This is strong enough to overwhelm very thin oil slicks (the optimum wind speed for detecting slicks on radar images is about 3 - 10 meters per second)

[[Location: -21.901,-39.822]]

Brazil Oil Spill - Well Plugged, Leaks Abating

We are still waiting to get more good satellite imagery of the Chevron / Transocean oil spill in the Campos Basin - it's been cloud-covered since our last image on November 12, so we've been unable to provide any new information.

But we are happy to pass along that Brazilian authorities report the well was plugged yesterday with cement, and the leakage from nearby points on the seafloor is greatly diminished. We expect to see a much smaller oil slick, if any, when we get another good satellite image of the area.

Brazilian Federal Police have launched an investigation into the causes and size of the spill. We hope all of this information becomes public: deepwater drilling is a global business and these were two of the biggest global players, so lessons learned from this incident will apply here in the U.S. too.

[[Location: -21.901,-39.822]]

"Fracking Pit" apparently not leaking near Salem, WV

SkyTruth has been in email contact with concerned local residents near this location, and here is what we learned:  The same person that called in the report to the NRC on November 9 also called the EPA and West Virginia DEP about the incident. We understand that the DEP responded by sending someone out to the location and they determined that the pond next to the drilling site was not leaking.  We don't know what the cause was of the orange coloration and oily sheen from the original report, but it seems unlikely that it is coming from this drilling site.

Here is a cell phone camera video of the site shot 2 days ago that shows the pond containment intact.



[[Location: 39.2997278,-80.5388131]]