© NOAA/APBlack slick floats in the Gulf of Mexico • August 31, 2021
The US Coast Guard is responding to a
14-mile long oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico discovered in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida, officials said Saturday
according to Bloomberg. The spill, which consists of
a 4-mile black sheen and a 10-mile rainbow sheen, is located in federal waters off Port Fourchon, Louisiana, said Sam Jones, head of the Louisiana Oil Spill Coordinator's Office.
"That's big," Jones said in an interview on Saturday. "It's the biggest one out there."
The Coast Guard said in a statement that crude is believed to be coming from a pipeline owned by Houston-based oil and gas exploration company Talos Energy, adding the agency was in the preliminary stages of investigation. In response, Talos said that while it's leading a response to the spill, it denied being responsible, saying the spill was coming from
an unknown source in an area where it ceased production in 2017.
"Extensive field observations indicate that Talos assets are not the source. Talos will continue to work closely with the U.S. Coast Guard and other state and federal agencies to identify the source of the release and coordinate a successful response."
Talos said it deployed two 95-foot response vessels to conduct oil recovery operations at the site as well as an additional vessel and divers to help locate the source.
The "big" spill wasn't the only one: Jones said his agency had received
265 reports of spills and other incidents related to Ida, including 32 that appeared to be serious. Among them were
two underwater pipelines, apparently transporting gas, and a gas well that blew in Three Bayou Bay in Jefferson Parish. The agency is investigating who owns those assets, Jones said.
Comment: Only a week earlier on September 1, a similar deluge struck nearby in another part of southern Europe, see: Heavy rainfall causes destructive flash floods in Spain - 3 inches of rain recorded in just 30 MINUTES