An oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is on track to become the worst in US history, according to the Washington Post.
In 2004, mudslides caused by Hurricane Ivan sank oil production platforms owned by Taylor Energy. These oil wells still haven’t been capped and have been slowly leaking oil into the Gulf for the last 14 years.
The site, which sits 12 miles off the coast of Louisiana, has been spilling between 10,000 and 30,000 gallons, or between 300 and 700 barrels, of oil per day. At this rate, the Taylor spill is set to bypass BP’s Deepwater Horizon as the worst offshore environmental disaster ever.
“This is one of those dirty little stories that has been hidden for too long,” John Amos, founder of the nonprofit environmental watchdog group SkyTruth, told CNN. He added that area locals have known what’s happening for years, but the spill never managed to gain national attention.
“That’s the problem with these chronic, slow-moving things. They don’t slap you in the face like the BP oil spill did.”
BP’s oil spill dumped up to 176.4 million gallons, or 4.2 million barrels, of oil into the Gulf over 87 days in 2010. In December, SkyTruth estimated the Taylor spill has dumped between 855,421 and 3,991,963 gallons into the Gulf. But Amos stressed that these estimates are probably still too low since most of their calculations are based on the company’s reports.
Taylor Energy initially reported the spill to the US Coast Guard, which quietly monitored it. In July 2008, the Coast Guard told the company that the spill had become “a continuous, unsecured crude oil discharge” which posed “a significant threat to the environment,” according to a lawsuit between Taylor Energy and its insurer.
Taylor Energy was sold to a “joint venture of South Korean companies in 2008,” the Washington Post reported. That same year, it established a $666 million trust with federal authorities to help clean up the spill, while ceasing all production and drilling.
But the spill remained hidden from the public until 2010, when the Louisiana Environmental Action Network (LEAN) came across separate oil patches while monitoring BP’s disaster. In 2012, LEAN along with several other Louisiana environmental groups filed a lawsuit against Taylor, which the company settled in 2015.
However, Taylor maintains there’s no evidence to suggest its wells are leaking. The company has declined to comment publicly and has not released a statement. With no fix in sight, the spill could continue for another century, or until the underground reservoir is depleted, according to the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement.
In September, the Department of Justice submitted an independent study into the spill and found that previous evaluations — compiled by the US Coast Guard National Response Center (NRC) and submitted by Taylor — had drastically underestimated the extent of the leak.
“There is abundant evidence that supports the fact that these reports from NRC are incorrect,” wrote Oscar Garcia-Pineda, the author of the report. “My conclusion is that NRC reports are not reliable.”
In January, the Trump administration proposed the largest expansion of offshore drilling for oil and gas. If passed, the plan would allow companies to drill in nearly all US waters — including the Atlantic coast, where hurricanes hit harder than the Gulf, and no oil has ever been produced.