$475M settlement proposed in longest-running U.S. oil spill

NEW ORLEANS — A New Orleansbased oil company has agreed to turn over a $432-million US cleanup trust fund and pay an additional $43 million to settle a federal lawsuit over cleaning up abandoned wells leaking since 2004, federal prosecutors said Wednesday.

“This settlement represents an important downpayment to address impacts from the longest-running oil spill in U.S. history,” Nicole LeBoeuf, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency’s National Ocean Service, said in a statement from the U.S. Department of Justice.

Lawyers for Taylor Oil Co., which agreed to drop three lawsuits challenging government cleanup orders and measures, did not respond to an email requesting comment.

As is common in such agreements, the proposed settlement said Taylor does not admit any liability.

U.S. District Judge Greg Gerard Guidry will decide whether to approve the proposed consent decree after a 40-day public comment period.

Sixteen wells off Louisiana have been leaking since September 2004, when a subsea mudslide caused by Hurricane Ivan knocked over a Taylor production platform, dragging and breaking a cluster of pipes. Taylor plugged nine wells, but has said it cannot plug the rest.

The settlement requires Taylor to drop its other lawsuits. In June, a federal appeals court agreed that a district judge was right to throw out a trespass suit against a federal contractor that created a system to capture most of the oil.

That system has captured and removed more than three million litres of oil since April 2019, said coast guard Capt. Will Watson, sector commander in New Orleans.

“Despite being a catalyst for beneficial environmental technological innovation, the damage to our ecosystem caused by this 17-year-old oil spill is unacceptable,” said Duane A. Evans, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana.

Taylor’s website states that it sold all its oil and gas assets in 2008 and exists now only to respond to the toppled platform.