Secret Gulf 10-Year Dirt, Dangerous Oil Leak Unravels: Judge Defies Cover Up

A decade-old crude oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico that most people have not heard about is making small-time news again this week due to one federal judge and a group of activists refusing to allow the disaster to continue without more aggressive action to halt it and more aggressive action against the Louisiana company an billionaire owner. The judge on Tuesday refused to dismiss a lawsuit that environmental groups filed against a New Orleans-based company responsible for the fossil fuel disaster.

U.S.. District Judge Susie Morgan ruled that a trial is necessary to determine whether several plaintiffs led by the New York-based Waterkeeper Alliance have a right to sue Taylor Energy Company.

The company claimed that federal regulators agree nothing else could be done to stop its oil platform leak off Louisiana’s coast. The oil leak is due to continue 100 years unless aggressive action is taken. Judge Morgan concluded that there is a “genuine factual dispute” over whether Taylor can and should do more to mitigate its impacts. The Coast Guard ordered the company to design and install a better system for collecting oil before it reaches the water’s surface, no remedy for the existing disaster.

Oil has been leaking where a Taylor-owned platform toppled during a landlside when Hurricane Ivan hit the Gulf region in 2004. Ivan’s mudslide buried a cluster of oil wells under mounds of sediment. It is only one example of a chronic fossil fuel pollution problem in the Gulf of Mexico impacting millions of human lives, a chronic cover-up by the state-sponsored oil mafia.

After the BP oil catastrophe in the Gulf, the Lower Mississippi Riverkeeper partnered with Waterkeeper Alliance, SouthWings and Skytruth to form a Gulf Monitoring Consortium. The Consortium has aimed at systematically monitoring oil pollution in the Gulf of Mexico with satellite images and mapping, aerial reconnaissance and photography, and on-the-water observation and sampling.

The Taylor well is 10 miles north of BP’s Macondo well, still leaking millions of gallons of oil after the Deepwater Horizon explosion on April 20, 2010, still being covered up, as are its extemely negative health impacts on humans.

From aerial monitoring flights conducted by Southwings, analysis of satellite imagery and National Response Center data research conducted by SkyTruth, the Gulf Monitoring Consortium became aware of and began documenting evidence of the ongoing spill at the Taylor Energy site.

“The Taylor Oil spill is emblematic of a broken system, where oil production is prioritized over concerns for human health and the environment,” Justin Bloom, Eastern Regional Director of Waterkeeper Alliance, said in 2012.

“The Taylor leak is just a great example of what I call a dirty little secret in plain sight,” SkyTruth President John Amos, a geologist whose environmental watchdog group has monitored the slicks by satellite, told the Associated Press earlier this year.

Taylor Energy, LLC. was founded in 1979 by Patrick F. Taylor who died in 2004. His wife Phyllis Taylor assumed ownership and is chairman and CEO of Taylor, making her the wealthiest woman in Louisiana.

Today Taylor Energy taps into 100 million barrels of proven reserves.