Talos says his operations were not the source of the oil. The company said it had been contacted because it was a former tenant of the block where the leak was located, although it had left production there in 2017 and had isolated the wells and removed all infrastructure.
So who is responsible for the spill? This has yet to be determined.
And that shouldn’t come as a big surprise, given the amount of old pipelines and wells abandoned in the Gulf of Mexico, according to Wilma Subra, a nonprofit chemist and technical advisor to the Louisiana Environmental Action Network.
“If you look at all the pipelines, on a map, in the sea, it looks like they’re spaghetti, you’ve just thrown in. Pipelines everywhere, everywhere, everywhere,” Subra said.
“There are a lot of pipelines out there, a lot of old and new ones, and others like Talos have disappeared over the years,” he said.
The office “does not have a robust oversight process to ensure the integrity of approximately 8,600 miles of active marine pipelines located on the seabed of the Gulf of Mexico,” nor does it have a “robust process to address environmental and safety risks” raised leaving deactivated pipes at its bottom in the sea “.
CNN contacted the BSEE on Tuesday, but did not respond immediately.
In a letter to the GAO in response to his report and attached as an appendix, a Home Office official wrote that the “Department generally agrees with the report’s findings.”
“BSEE has begun to implement GAO’s recommendation to develop, finalize, and implement updated pipeline regulations to address long-standing limitations in relation to its ability to (1) ensure the active integrity of pipelines and (2) address the environmental and safety risks related to dismantling “. wrote Laura Daniel-Davis, senior deputy secretary, Land and Mineral Administration, in the U.S. Department of the Interior.
Members of the U.S. Coast Guard’s National Attack Force that flew over the Bay Marchand area on Sunday saw no visible oil spills in the area, according to Lt. John Edwards.
“What was observed was an unrecoverable, dissipating rainbow glow that was about 11 miles long,” Edwards said in an email to CNN. Anyway, the source of the discharge is unknown, he said.
Talos said he observed pipelines owned by other companies that were likely affected by Ida, including a 12-inch pipe that apparently appeared at the launch source.
“Talos conducted physical inspections and scans of submarine sonar that confirmed that Talos’ assets were not the source or cause of the release, ”the company said.
Finding the person responsible will be part of the investigation, said Coast Guard NCO Gabriel Wisdom.
Talos said he is working with the Coast Guard and other state and federal agencies to determine ownership of the damaged pipeline and to organize a coordinated response to the spill.
Meanwhile, the USCG said it “prioritizes” approximately 350 “oil spill” incidents for further investigation by state, local and federal authorities “in the wake of Hurricane Ida, which hit the Gulf Coast as a powerful category 4 storm.
These are incidents reported by the general public and range from “minor pollution reports to possible notables,” Wisdom said.
While they could be duplicate reports of the same, “right now we treat them all individually” and they will all be inspected, he said.
For Subra, the Bay Marchand leak is an example of the “potential that exists every time there is a hurricane or even a weather front that disrupts the Gulf and alters the waters near the bottom” due to the numerous pipelines and abandoned wells there, many that have not been plugged in, she said.
The BSEE said on Tuesday that its hurricane response team “continues to monitor offshore oil and gas operators in the Gulf as they return to platforms and rigs after the storm.”