Just as the government announced that the eastern part of the Gulf of Mexico is now open to fin fishing and the taking of shrimp (in sharp contradiction to toxicology reports from our sources,) another oil rig has exploded some 80 miles south of Vermilion Bay, Louisiana, injuring at least one person. An oil slick 100 feet wide and a mile long has been seen coming from this site, dubbed Vermillion 380, which was described as a “fixed, manned production platform” owned by Mariner Energy. At 12:52 EST, the Coast Guard reports that they were actively rescuing 13 workers who were thrown into the ocean by the explosion. Though the rig is fix, rather than floating, in waters 2500 feet deep, it was reported that the rig was not producing oil or gas at the time, as it was undergoing maintenance.
It has not yet been determined if there is a significant ongoing leak or not. At 2:30 Eastern Time, the rig was still burning. Three additional firefighting vessels have been dispatched to the area of the rig to assist the one already there. Coast Guard choppers are there primarily to rescue the workers, but will likely provide further information from their aerial perspective as well.
We would like to hope that the recent oil cleanup activities have taught them to surround that oil and reclaim it by vacuum rather than “dispersing” it with Corexit or some other solvent. Leaking oil would again put wildlife and shorelines at risk, but the “dispersing agents” have proven far more dangerous than allowing the crude oil to remain at the surface, where it can be seen and collected.
We will keep you posted on this latest development, and continue to monitor the Gulf waters. Surely this can not be mistaken; What clearer sign do we need? It’s time to call a halt to ALL offshore drilling. If this had happened on a land-based rig, containment would be easily done, and losses nearly non-existent.
UPDATE: Other sources say that the fixed platform WAS producing when the explosion happened, but that it has since been shut down. Mariner Energy claims that the burn and spill came from about 4200 gallons of stored fuel, that it was not leaking from the platform. The platform’s job was to collect the oil from each of 7 active wells and push it through one or both of the pipelines that run from that location to shore.
Claims that there is “no pollution” are obviously inaccurate, but we hope this will not end up being another BP. Regardless, it’s just another example of how it’s unacceptably dangerous to continue to have open water rigs. It’s worrysome that Patrick Cassidy, a spokesman for Mariner Energy, claimed that “no oil sheen was seen on the water” when other reports were specific about the width and length of just such a sheen. It’s highly unlikely that NO oil is on the water, leaving us wondering at the credibility of Mariner Energy’s statements.
A White House representative expressed relief that there doesn’t appear to be a spill from this explosion. Carol Browner said “We were using every single piece of available equipment to cope with the Deepwater Horizon spill, so if there had been another leak, we couldn’t have responded.” That pretty much sums it up.