We might have taught that oil spill is very rare, however, it’s not true because oil spills are actually quite common. As per the information was given by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, they estimate that there are about 70 oil spills each day. For a year, this amounts to approximately 1.3 million gallons (or 4.9 million liters) being spilled into U.S. waters. However, the number of spills get doubled when there is a large oil spill. The provoking situation would be there is a more considerable oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has been ignored for 14 years of the period. Due to this incident, it has caused a huge impact and has become one of the worst offshore disasters in U.S. history.
According to the Washington Post, it mentioned that 12 miles off the Louisiana coast, between 300 and 700 barrels of oil are spewing into the ocean each day. This spill has started in 2004 when an oil manufacture platform owned by Taylor Energy was impaired during Hurricane Ivan. Because the platform sank into a mudslide, many of the wells were left open.
Furthermore, after 14 years of time, the wells have not stopped leaking the oil into the Gulf of Mexico. There is no fix in sight for this issue. Federal officials estimate that the spill won’t be fixed until the end of this century. Due to this reason, the Taylor offshore spill is possible to overtake BP’s Deepwater Horizon occurrence as the largest ever.
Why No One Has Heard About the Taylor Energy Spill
There is no fun in an oil spill because it welcomes to damage a company reputation. Therefore, that is the main reason why Taylor Energy company has kept it as a secret. Six years after the occurrence, however, environmental watchdog teams stumbled across the polluted waters with a rainbow colored oil slick. They were checking the BP Deepwater Horizon tragedy just a few miles away.
Apparently, Taylor Energy informed the U.S. Coast Guard National Response Center (NRC) about the spill. But, NRC has not investigated the situation and has used data from the company citing that the spill is leaking only one-to-55 barrels each day. Therefore, there is a new analysis conducted by the Justice Department in September reveals the imprecision. “There is abundant evidence that supports the fact that these reports from NRC are incorrect,” wrote Oscar Garcia-Pineda, a geoscience consultant who specializes in remote sensing of oil spills. “My conclusion is that NRC reports are not reliable.”
The Coast Guard checked the spill for more than five years of the period without sharing information to the public. Afterward, July 2008, the Coast Guard informed Taylor Energy that the spill is “an endless, unsafe crude oil discharge” that poses “a significant threat to the environment,” according to a lawsuit between Taylor Energy and its insurer.
Due to this issue, the company had to make a deal with federal officials in order to establish a $666 million trust to stop the spill. According to the Washington Post reports, “Taylor Energy spent a fortune to pluck the deck of the platform from the ocean and plug about a third of the wells. It built a kind of shield to keep the crude from rising.” Even with the company’s hard work, however, the oil kept leaking.
It is evident that the investigation has processed for 10 years. However, legal processes have devastated Taylor Energy. Therefore, the company try to walk away from the problem now and sue the Interior Department in federal court to see“the return of about $450 million left in a trust established with the government to fund its work to recover part of the wreckage and locate wells buried under 100 feet of muck,” stated in The Washington Post.
Even after the 14 years of time, the government is still not aware of how it has impacted negatively on the marine life. It is only a lack of economic analysis outlining the value of the oil flowing into the sea or potential royalties lost to taxpayers. What activists are trying is that the oil spill is first contained. Then, an in-depth analysis defining the result the spill will have (and has had) on marshland and beaches needs to be conducted.
I am a Business Management graduate from the University Of Staffordshire (UK) and a qualified personnel officer who completed the National Diploma of Training and Human Resource development at Institute of Personnel Management (Sri-Lanka).
Apart from my professional career in the field of HRM, I am also a freelance writer of web and business contents.
