oil spill 498 articles

The governors of Georgia and Alabama have declared a state of emergency amid fears of fuel shortages caused by a breach in a major pipeline that spilled a quarter million gallons of refined gasoline in Shelby County, Ala., Friday. The pipeline operator, Colonial Pipeline, predicted that Alabama and other southeastern states would be the first to feel the impact of the pipeline’s shut down. The pipeline runs from Houston, Texas, to New York and is the main gasoline artery linking Houston refineries to the rest of the Eastern Seaboard. Georgia Governor Nathan Deal was the first to declare a state ... Read More

When sculptor Michael Manjarris found the person sitting next to him on a flight from Texas to New Orleans was a grieving parent of one of the 11 workers killed in BP’s Deepwater Horizon explosion, an idea for a public art project commemorating the fallen workers began to take shape. On Friday, Sept. 9, that idea became a reality with the installation of a sculpture by Laurel, Miss., artist Jason Kimes named ELEVEN on the Elysian Fields Avenue median near the corner of Dauphine in New Orleans. For many family members of the 11 workers killed in the April 20, 2010, Deepwater Horizon ... Read More

An increasing amount of oil train traffic and the devastating accidents that go along with it have officials in municipalities affected by the trains on alert. But as towns and cities across the U.S. request inspection reports of certain bridges and other infrastructures supporting oil trains, officials are discovering that railroads aren’t being open and transparent about their findings. Under the federal Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act, which became law in December, state, county, and municipal officials can request inspection reports from the railroads that run oil trains through their cities. The Federal Railroad Administration, serving as a link between ... Read More

A ship performing excavation work off the Louisiana coast struck an oil pipeline Monday morning, setting off an oil spill that released more than 5,000 gallons of crude. The U.S. Coast Guard said that the pipeline, owned by Harvest Pipeline Company, discharged about 5,300 gallons of crude oil 590 miles south of New Orleans and 12 miles east of Grand Isle after it was damaged by a vessel operated by Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Company. The Coast Guard received a call about the oil spill just after 10 a.m. Monday. Coast Guard officials said Great Lake Dredge and Dock ... Read More

Oil-train disasters have become so frequent in North America that some U.S. states are taking action to mitigate the potential damage caused by a crash or derailment. Among the states passing legislation to deal with future oil-train disasters is Washington, where last week a new rule went into effect requiring terminals, refineries, and other oil facilities to notify the state Department of Ecology in advance in advance of oil shipments. The state will then relay the information to local emergency responders in communities along the oil train’s route. The new rule –Washington State’s first reporting requirement for oil train shipments ... Read More

Oregon lawmakers introduced a new bill to improve oil train safety and to help the state cope with future oil spills caused by train derailments and other accidents. The bipartisan “Community Protection and Preparedness Act,” introduced to the State Legislature last month, would create an emergency-response and clean-up fund by imposing a $1,500 annual fee on each oil train tank car that falls short of federal Department of Transportation (DOT) safety requirements. The Act would also mandate that railroads inspect their tracks on foot in “high consequence areas” especially sensitive to oil pollution. Such areas would include waterways, highly populated areas, and ... Read More

Two months after a Union Pacific oil train derailed in Oregon’s Columbia River Gorge, state officials have discovered that some of the spilled oil has seeped into the groundwater supply, posing a potentially dangerous and difficult-to-clean contamination problem. Sixteen of the oil train’s 96 cars derailed on June 3, spilling 42,000 gallons of crude oil and setting off a massive fire that raged for 14 hours. The disaster also knocked the wastewater system in the town of Mosier completely out of order. Now that much of the surface oil has been recovered, the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (ODEQ) and ... Read More

A faulty oil well released an estimated 4,200 gallons of crude oil in the mouth of the Mississippi River in Louisiana’s Plaquemines Parrish Aug. 2. It was the third oil spill in a week to hit the southeastern Louisiana Parrish, which is still struggling to recover from BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The U.S. Coast Guard reported the spill came from a well owned by the Texas Petroleum Investment Company. The exact cause of the spill remains unknown, but Coast Guard and state authorities continue to investigate. According to the Times-Picayune, Texas Petroleum has contracted OMI Environmental Solutions and Clean ... Read More

Federal officials announced the U.S. government has reached a settlement with Enbridge Energy and several related companies, requiring the oil pipeline operators to invest $177 million in pipeline improvements and pay federal pollution fines stemming from its 2010 oil spills in Marshall, Michigan and Romeoville, Ill. According to joint releases from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Enbridge will spend at least $110 million on a series of measures to prevent oil spills and improve its operations affecting about 2,000 miles of its pipeline system in the Great Lakes region. The company will also ... Read More

Tesoro Corporation and Par Hawaii Refining have reached a $425-million settlement with the U.S. government that resolves numerous Clean Air Act violations and introduces a plan to drastically reduce air pollution at six refineries across the western U.S. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) jointly announced the settlement Monday, saying that the bulk of the settlement — $403 million – would go toward the installation and operation of pollution control equipment at refineries in Kenai, Alaska; Martinez, Calif.; Kapolei, Hawaii; Mandan, N.D.; Salt Lake City, Utah; and Anacortes, Wash. Each year, these improvements at ... Read More