Murphy Oil Spill (Chalmette, Louisiana).html |
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According to US Coast Guard there were about 44 oil spills in the area affected by Hurricane Katrina. Most of these occurred in areas of Plaquemines Parish which do not have large populations. The exception is the Murphy Oil Spill which hit residential areas of Chalmette, Louisiana and Meraux, Louisiana.
On August 30, 2005, the storm surge from Hurricane Katrina caused massive failure along the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet levee and inundated St. Bernard Parish 4 to 14 feet (4.3 m) of water. Murphy Oil refinery was under 6-18 feet of water. A 250,000-barrel (40,000 m3) above ground storage tank was dislodged, lifted and damaged in flooding associated. The tank contained 65,000 barrels (10,300 m3) of mixed crude oil, and released approximately 25,110 barrels (1,050,000 gallons). The pressure from the flood waters kept the water inside of the tank until the waters had receded to about 4 feet (1.2 m), five days after the storm had passed. As the oil released it flowed along with the flood waters from east to west. The released oil impacted approximately 1700 homes in an adjacent residential neighborhoods of Chalmette; an area of about one square mile. Several canals have also been impacted: the 20 Arpent Canal; the 40 Arpent Canal; the Meraux Canal; the Corinne Canal; the DeLaRonde Canal; and, various unnamed interceptor canals. [1]
Criticism of Murphy Oil
Major industries in St. Bernard Parish, including the two oil refineries, had disaster mitigations plans that were filed with the local government. However, the local government lost most of its files in the flood that followed the levee failure.
Employees of oil refineries in the disaster area have stated on online forums that their refineries filled tanks with water in order to prevent them from floating away. However, typical pre-Katrina industry standards on the Gulf Coast were based on a heavy rain event, and did not anticipate a full inundation of water around the storage tanks.
Another refinery employee commented that these large oil storage tanks are sometimes purposely floated in order to move them. The containment levees around the tank are generally filled with water and tanks are moved in this way around tanks farms. This is done on a planned basis with all oil removed from the tank being moved.