OR&R Providing Scientific Support Following Lake Washington A10 Well Leak in Louisiana
DEC. 13, 2018 — NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration has staff on scene near Port Sulphur, Louisiana following an equipment failure on a wellhead casing in the Lake Washington-Rattlesnake Bayou area. The U.S. Coast Guard notified OR&R of the failure on Sunday, Dec. 9.
OR&R’s Emergency Response Division is providing scientific support in the form of oil spill trajectories and shoreline injury and cleanup assessments to the Unified Command (consisting of the Coast Guard, Louisiana Oil Spill Coordinator’s Office, and Hilcorp Energy Co.).
“Source control crews have controlled the leak, and continue to work to repair the well in attempt to prevent further discharging,” stated a Coast Guard press release on Wednesday. The release noted that roughly 11,000 feet of hard boom had been deployed to contain the leak. At the time of the release approximately 4,830 gallons of oily water mixture have been recovered and 116 oil spill response personnel were on scene conducting containment and clean-up operations.
OR&R’s Assessment and Restoration Division has staff on scene to coordinate with co-trustees in evaluating impacts to NOAA Trust Resources. Additionally, the division is providing information management support through ERMA (Environmental Management Response Application), and the DIVER application.
Response operations are ongoing and more updates will follow.
