As the first week of September rolled in, so did the rain and wind. Hurricane Ida hit land in Louisiana near Port Fourchon around noon on August 29, 2021, bringing masses of rain and power outages that lasted for several days. As the hurricane moved up the east coast, going back out to sea, it left many towns and communities along the coast underwater and without power. 

But the land and the infrastructure atop it were not the only things affected by the storm. The Gulf of Mexico also took a good beating with an oil spill from one of the local underwater pipelines.

Talos Energy is an oil and gas company that joins in the exploration, development, and production of natural gas and oil in the Gulf of Mexico area. Their company was founded in 2012 and they are based out of the Houston, Texas area. It is believed that one of Talos Energy’s pipelines was the source of the leak into the Gulf of Mexico. There is not yet an estimated guess on how much oil there is, but the spill spans a stretch of around twelve miles along the gulf coast. As of an update given on September 5th, crews had removed an estimated 45 gallons of the crude oil, with much more yet to be removed. 

The United States Coast Guard was called into help with the removal process, along with a crew of people called in by the pipeline company’s owners. Their divers were heading down underwater to investigate the area where the oil was suspected to have been leaking from. 

Along with absorbent pads being used to remove the oil, large vessels were sent out to help remove it in a timely manner. Thankfully, the oil hadn’t moved further onto the shore, which would lead to problems on land and could also cause major environmental damage. 

As of September 7th, 2021, divers discovered three damaged pipes but did not find an exact source for the leak. The gulf has many pipelines in it because of drilling, but not all of them are currently being used, so when companies are done with them, they just leave the pipelines there. They can then get into a worse state, causing problems. There is now uncertainty about who is responsible for the leak and who is the owner of the pipelines that were found damaged. 

Oil and gas spills can cause a lot of damage to the environment, and to current and future generations. There are measures which need to be taken to prevent future oil or gas spills that occur while handling such products, like making the gas and oil lines that go underwater safer and more durable so that they can more easily prevent future breakages in the lines. Forcing companies to perform routine inspections on their lines to hopefully catch things that could go wrong could also be beneficial.