1st reported by All Gov: Lost in the furor over the Deepwater Horizon oil well explosion and subsequent venting of oil into the Gulf of Mexico has been a smaller, yet persistent, leak of oil from wells destroyed in a hurricane more than 10 years ago.
When Hurricane Ivan moved through the Gulf in September 2004, it caused a landslide that buried wells owned by Taylor Energy Co. Ever since then, those wells have been steadily sending a ribbon of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. While Taylor has claimed the leak has released as little as 4 gallons of crude a day into the Gulf, and the Coast Guard has spotted sheens averaging 84 gallons a day, some estimates of the total leak are far larger, running as high as 900 gallons a day.
“The Taylor leak is just a great example of what I call a dirty little secret in plain sight,” SkyTruth President John Amos, a geologist whose environmental watchdog group has monitored the slicks by satellite, told the Associated Press.
Usually when a well blows out, it’s plugged (eventually) and abandoned. But because the Taylor wells are buried, that procedure won’t work. Instead, another company was hired to develop a proprietary plan to stop the leak. Despite those efforts, the leak of oil continues, but there’s no corresponding flow of information about the process available to the public, claiming the need to protect trade secrets. The company won’t share information about its efforts to others in the industry to prepare for similar leaks.
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