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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, APRIL 23, 2015
Secrecy shrouds decade-old oil spill in Gulf of Mexico
By MICHAEL
KUNZELMAN
and JEFF DONN
The Associated Press
OVER THE GULF OF
MEXICO — A blanket of fog
lifts, exposing a band of rainbow
sheen that stretches for miles off
the coast of Louisiana. From the
vantage point of an airplane, it’s
easy to see gas bubbles in the
slick that mark the spot where
an oil platform toppled during a
2004 hurricane, triggering what
might be the longest-running
commercial oil spill ever to pol-
lute the Gulf of Mexico.
Yet more than a decade after
crude started leaking at the site
formerly operated by Taylor
Energy Company, few people
even know of its existence. The
company has downplayed the
leak’s extent and environmental
impact, likening it to scores of
minor spills and natural seeps
the Gulf routinely absorbs.
An Associated Press inves-
tigation has revealed evidence
that the spill is far worse than
what Taylor — or the govern-
ment — have publicly report-
ed during their secretive, and
costly, effort to halt the leak.
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that the sheen recently averaged
about 91 gallons of oil per day
across eight square miles, the
Coast Guard provided a new
leak estimate that is about 20
times greater than one recently
touted by the company.
Outside experts say the spill
could be even worse — possibly
one of the largest ever in the Gulf.
Taylor’s oil was befouling
the Gulf for years in obscuri-
ty before BP’s massive spill in
mile-deep water outraged the
nation in 2010. Even industry
experts haven’t heard of Taylor’s
slow-motion spill, which has
been leaking like a steady trickle
from a faucet, compared to the
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Taylor, a company renowned
in Louisiana for the philan-
thropy of its deceased founder,
has kept documents secret that
would shed light on what it has
done to stop the leak and elimi-
nate the persistent sheen.
The Coast Guard said in
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cant threat” to the environment,
though there is no evidence oil
from the site has reached shore.
Ian MacDonald, a Florida State
University biological ocean-
ography professor and expert
witness in a lawsuit against Tay-
lor, said the sheen “presents a
substantial threat to the environ-
ment” and is capable of harming
ELUGV¿VKDQGRWKHUPDULQHOLIH
Using satellite images and
pollution reports, the watchdog
group SkyTruth estimates be-
tween 300,000 and 1.4 million
gallons of oil has spilled from
the site since 2004, with an an-
nual average daily leak rate be-
tween 37 and 900 gallons.
If SkyTruth’s high-end es-
timate of 1.4 million gallons is
accurate, Taylor’s spill would be
about 1 percent the size of BP’s,
which a judge ruled amounted to
134 million gallons. That would
still make the Taylor spill the 8th
largest in the Gulf since 1970,
according to a list compiled by
the National Oceanic and Atmo-
spheric Administration.
“The Taylor leak is just a great
example of what I call a dirty lit-
tle secret in plain sight,” said Sky-
Truth President John Amos.
Taylor has spent tens of mil-
AP Photo/Charlie Riedel
A brown pelican tries to raise its wings as it sits on the beach at East Grand Terre Island along the Louisiana coast after being drenched in oil from
the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill. June 3, 2010. See more photos at www.dailyastorian.com.
U.S. Coast Guard via AP, File
AP Photo/Dave Martin
Crude oil from the BP Deepwater Horizon spill is seen inside a wave as it washes ashore
in Orange Beach, Ala., June 12, 2010. An April 20, 2010, explosion at the offshore platform
killed 11 men, and the subsequent leak released an estimated 172 million gallons of pe-
troleum into the Gulf of Mexico.
lions of dollars to contain and
stop its leak, but it says nothing
can be done to completely halt
the chronic slicks.
The New Orleans based
company presented federal reg-
ulators last year with a proposed
³¿QDOUHVROXWLRQ´DWWKHVLWHEXW
the details remain under wraps.
For years, the government has
allowed the company to shield
other spill-related information
from public scrutiny — all in the
name of protecting trade secrets.
Industry experts and envi-
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by Taylor’s inability to stop the
OHDNDQGLWVGHPDQGVIRUFRQ¿-
dentiality.
“It’s not normal to have a
spill like this,” said Ken Arnold,
an industry consultant and for-
mer engineering manager for
Shell Oil Company. “The whole
thing surprises me. Normally,
ZH¿[WKLQJVPXFKPRUHTXLFN-
ly than this.”
Five years ago, it took 87
days for BP to cap its blown-out
Gulf well and halt the worst off-
shore oil spill in the nation’s his-
tory. The disaster, which killed
11 rig workers, exposed weak-
nesses in the industry’s safety
culture and gaps in its spill re-
sponse capabilities.
Taylor’s leak provided ear-
OLHUHYLGHQFHRIKRZGLI¿FXOWLW
can be for the industry to pre-
vent or stop a spill in an unfor-
giving environment. But the
company has balked at sharing
information that could help oth-
er offshore operators prepare for
a similar incident, saying it’s a
valuable asset.
:KHWKHU LW FDQ SUR¿W IURP
any industry innovations is de-
batable. The company sold all its
offshore leases and oil and gas
interests in 2008, four years after
founder Patrick Taylor died.
Down to just one full-time
employee, Taylor Energy exists
RQO\WRFRQWLQXH¿JKWLQJDVSLOO
that has no end in sight.
Learning Curve
Hurricane Ivan whipped into
the Gulf of Mexico in 2004,
churning up waves that triggered
an underwater mudslide and
toppled Taylor’s platform. The
platform stood roughly 10 miles
off Louisiana’s coast in approx-
imately 475 feet of water. The
mudslide buried the cluster of
28 wells under mounds of sedi-
ment. Taylor tried to remove the
unstable sediment covering the
damaged wells, but determined
it was too dangerous for divers.
O u r cu sto m ers experien ce so m e o f T
life’ s grea test a ssists o ff the
co u rt. Tru st yo u r lo ca l S ta te Fa rm ®
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TODAY. W E EX IST TO ASSIST.
Without access to the bur-
ied wells, traditional “plug and
abandon” efforts wouldn’t work.
In 2005, hurricanes Katrina and
Rita disrupted the company’s re-
sponse efforts for several months.
In 2007, slick sightings became
more frequent near the wreckage.
In 2008, the Coast Guard, con-
cerned about the environmental
threat of the leak, ordered addition-
al work, including daily monitor-
ing flights over the site.
Just as BP had to improvise
a method for capping its well in
mile-deep water, Taylor says it
formulated an “unprecedented
plan” for containing the leak and
sealing its buried wells.
Only the broad outlines of the
company’s efforts are publicly
known. A contractor designed a
device to capture and dispose of
RLODQGJDVÀRZLQJIURPWKHVHD-
bed where its wells are buried.
Another contractor drilled new
wells to intercept and plug nine
wells deemed capable of leaking oil.
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convened a workshop on the
leak. Months later, the company
presented regulators its proposal
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but Taylor Energy President
William Pecue has said experts
Fire boat response crews spray water on the burning BP
Deepwater Horizon offshore oil rig, April 21, 2010. An April
20, 2010, explosion at the platform killed 11 men, and the
subsequent leak released an estimated 172 million gal-
lons of petroleum into the gulf.
DQG JRYHUQPHQW RI¿FLDOV DJUHH
that the “best course of action
LVWRQRWWDNHDQ\DI¿UPDWLYH
action” due to the possible risks
of additional drilling.
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tial records with the Waterkeeper
Alliance, a New York City-based
environmental group that sued
the company in 2012 over its se-
crecy. But the company has ag-
gressively worked to keep them
from the public, stamping thou-
sands of pages of documents as
FRQ¿GHQWLDODQGKHDYLO\UHGDFW-
ing its president’s deposition.
A report related to the March
2014 workshop is under seal,
with the company arguing in
D FRXUW ¿OLQJ WKDW UHOHDVLQJ LW
would undermine the govern-
ment’s decision-making pro-
cess. And a court order prohibits
the Waterkeeper Alliance from
GLVVHPLQDWLQJDQ\RIWKHFRQ¿-
dential records.
During his deposition for the
lawsuit, Pecue said the company
developed innovations of “huge
value” to another company in a
similar situation.
“Much of what we spent was
because there was no pre-exist-
ing way to address this type of
event in the history of our indus-
try,” he said.
Long before Taylor’s leak,
the industry learned of the risks
of drilling in the Gulf’s mud-
slide-prone areas. In 1969, Hur-
ricane Camille caused a mud-
slide that destroyed a platform
and damaged another.
Taylor’s platform had been
installed in 1984 by Sohio Pe-
troleum, which started drilling
wells before the company was
acquired by BP. Taylor pur-
chased the platform from BP
in 1994 and drilled additional
wells.
Pecue, the company’s last
remaining full-time employee,
said Taylor didn’t do anything to
assess the risk of mudslides at its
platform besides verifying that
the previous leaseholder’s per-
mits and designs met regulatory
requirements.
Soon after Taylor’s platform
toppled, a company contractor
hired Louisiana State University
professor Harry Roberts to per-
form a geological analysis of the
site. Roberts said it had appeared
to have been “reasonably stable”
before Ivan struck.
“But it turned out not to be,”
he added. “It is a learning curve.
Maybe this is a point on the
learning curve that other compa-
nies can learn from.”
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