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After Hurricane Ida, Oil Infrastructure Springs Dozens of LeaksSkip to Comments
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After Hurricane Ida, Oil Infrastructure Springs Dozens of Leaks

When Hurricane Ida barreled into the Louisiana coast with near 150 mile-per-hour winds on Aug. 30, it left a trail of destruction. The storm also triggered the most oil spills detected from space after a weather event in the Gulf of Mexico since the federal government started using satellites to track spills and leaks a decade ago.

Oil spills seen after Hurricane Ida

Hurricane IdaLA.Area ofDetailArea ofDetail
August 28
Source: NOAA Marine Pollution Reports·Spill locations are approximate. NOAA classifies most of what is presented here as “possible oil.”

In the two weeks after Ida, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued a total of 55 spill reports, including a spill near a fragile nature reserve. It underscores the frailty of the region’s offshore oil and gas infrastructure to intensifying storms fueled by climate change.

“That’s unprecedented, based on our 10 year record,” said Ellen Ramirez, who oversees NOAA’s round-the-clock satellite detection of marine pollution, including oil spills. “Ida has had the most significant impact to offshore drilling” since the program began, she said.

Using satellite imagery, NOAA typically reports about 250 to 300 spills a year in American waters, including the Atlantic, Pacific and the Gulf of Mexico, a pace of about 25 spills a month. In the two weeks before Ida, NOAA spotted just five potential oil slicks in the Gulf. The program, the National Environmental Satellite and Data Information Service, uses satellite technology to detect important but hard-to-see events, like methane leaks, signs of deforestation and others, that affect the climate and environment.

Weekly NOAA pollution reports in the Gulf of Mexico

Source: NOAA Marine Pollution Reports

There are some important caveats. NOAA’s satellite tracking effort started years after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which triggered a series of spills that ultimately released about 10 million gallons into the Gulf, the same amount of oil as the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster off of Alaska. It also doesn’t cover BP’s Deepwater Horizon blowout in 2010, which spewed more than 120 million gallons of oil, the biggest offshore oil spill in United States history. (At the time, NOAA did engage in an experimental effort to use satellite imagery to track the oil’s spread.)

NOAA cautions that there are still limits to using satellite technology to detect oil spills, and changes in wave patterns, or shadows cast by clouds, can sometimes look like slicks. With this technology, the agency cannot measure the amount of oil spilled. It produces the reports so the United States Coast Guard and others can mount a rapid response, scrutinizing the satellite imagery to differentiate between areas of thick oil that can be removed by skimming, and lighter oil sheens, which are generally too thin to recover.

In the days immediately following Hurricane Ida, The New York Times used satellite and aerial survey images, as well as ship tracking data, to report on a substantial spill near Port Fourchon, a main hub for Louisiana’s offshore oil and gas industry. A Houston-based oil and gas exploration company and the most recent leaseholder in the area, Talos Energy, initially led a cleanup effort at the site. Since then, the company has said that divers at the site discovered an abandoned pipeline, not owned by Talos, that could instead be the source of the leak.

Hurricane Ida dealt a particular blow, experts say, because of its intensity and its path. The storm made landfall at Port Fourchon, the service hub for the vast majority of offshore oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. The spills show how the mass of pipelines, platforms and wells in the area have become increasingly vulnerable to extreme weather linked to global warming.

Two Gulf platforms that appeared to be leaking on Sept. 2.·Satellite images by Maxar Technologies

In the days after the hurricane, satellite imagery showed at least 10 spills flowing from platforms and other fixed structures in the Gulf. These offshore platforms, some as tall as skyscrapers, hold the equipment to drill, produce, store and transport oil and gas, and are designed to withstand severe storms, but many are decades old. Offshore operators have said some of those platforms sustained significant structural damage from Ida.

As of last week, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, which regulates the offshore oil and gas industry, said workers still hadn’t returned to 32 platforms. About 16 percent of the Gulf’s oil production, and 24 percent of its gas production, remains shut down.

On Aug. 30, even as the thick slicks spread their way across the water, the Biden administration moved to lease more than 80 million acres in the Gulf for new oil and gas production. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management expects those leases to produce up to 1.12 billion barrels of oil, and 4.4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, over the next 50 years.

Much of the older oil and gas infrastructure has been abandoned. A report published earlier this year by the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that since the 1960s, federal regulators have allowed oil and gas producers in the Gulf to leave 18,000 miles of pipeline on the seafloor. Those pipelines, about 97 percent of the decommissioned ones in the area, are often abandoned without cleaning or burial. Federal data shows that approximately 47 percent of pipeline segments, and 75 percent of platforms, are inactive or abandoned.

Pipelines
Active
Inactive or abandoned
Platforms
Active
Inactive or abandoned
Source: Bureau of Ocean Energy Management

“For years, hurricanes have caused these kinds of spills and damage to pipeline infrastructure, and I think to some extent that's inevitable,” said Frank Rusco, the federal accountability office’s director of natural resources and environment. “Old pipelines are going to break loose, get moved about, dragged across other things. And so it really is a hazardous situation out there.”

The spills caused by Hurricane Ida have brought more damage to a shoreline made fragile from decades of oil and gas drilling. One of the slicks was very near the East Timbalier Island National Wildlife Refuge, an ecologically-rich part of a barrier island chain that forms the first line of defense against vulnerable inner bays, as well as the hub of Port Fourchon.

“We won’t know the true ecological impact for a while,” said Scott Eustis, community science director at the New Orleans-based nonprofit, Healthy Gulf, who has long studied the effect of oil and gas drilling on Louisiana’s wetlands. “These islands were here to protect Louisiana. But instead, we’ve drilled wells and we’ve abandoned pipelines,” he said. “And they’re leaking.”

Louisiana has spent millions of dollars trying to restore the island, which is riddled with oil wells. Some scientists have said the island is too far gone to save.

Oil slicks seen on Sept. 4 near East Timbalier Island National Wildlife Refuge.Satellite image by Maxar Technologies