U.S. Water News Online
EL DORADO, Ark. -- Once thought mostly contained in Murphy Oil property, aerial photographs confirm that a leak at the company's flooded refinery in Meraux, La., is spreading into a nearby neighborhood.
The crude oil spill was discovered leaking from an 85,000-barrel tank. The aerial photographs later showed it seeping through the flood waters to the neighborhood west of the refinery, which is owned and operated by El Dorado-based Murphy Oil.
Darin Mann, a spokesman from the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality said the leak was first seen during a DEQ flyover, but state officials don't know how much oil has leaked out or when cleanup can begin.
A contractor has been hired for cleanup, but hasn't been able to get its equipment into the area because of the surrounding flooding.
The refinery was still surrounded by water, even though flood waters in the rest of St. Bernard Parish, located east and southeast of New Orleans, had generally receded.
Mann said Murphy Oil is responsible for the cleanup.
Limited accessibility is hampering efforts from spill responders, who are on site trying to assess the damage, the company said. Much of the area around the spill had already been evacuated, company officials said.
Each oil tank at the refinery is surrounded by a retaining wall to keep the oil back in case of a spill, but at the time of the leak the walls were filled with flood water, Murphy Oil spokesman Kevin Fitzgerald said.
That retaining wall has since been repaired, the company said. Murphy Oil officials notified the National Response Center, the U.S. Coast Guard and the Environmental Protection Agency about the spill.
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