Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

In decade-old leak, oil exec says ‘act of God’ to blame

- MICHAEL KUNZELMAN

BATON ROUGE — A decade-old oil leak that regulators say could last another century was caused by an “act of God” during a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico, the president of the company responsibl­e said Wednesday.

Taylor Energy President William Pecue told a gathering of industry experts and environmen­tal advocates in Baton Rouge that the company cares “very deeply” about the environmen­t.

“This event hits home for us,” said Pecue, the last remaining full-time employee at the New Orleans-based company. “This is our community. We live here and it is very special to us.”

The public meeting at a Louisiana State University research center is a requiremen­t of a court settlement that Taylor Energy reached in September with environmen­tal groups, which accused the company of withholdin­g informatio­n about the leak.

In September 2004, waves whipped up by Hurricane Ivan triggered an underwater mudslide, which toppled a Taylor Energy-owned platform and buried a cluster of its oil wells under mounds of sediment.

Federal regulators believe oil is still leaking out at the site. Oil slicks often stretch for miles near Louisiana’s coast.

Taylor Energy has said nothing can be done to completely eliminate the sheens. Regulators recently estimated the leak could last a century or more if left unchecked.

An Associated Press investigat­ion last year revealed evidence that the leak is worse than the company, or government, have publicly reported. Presented with those findings, the Coast Guard provided a new leak estimate that’s about 20 times larger than one cited by the company in a court filing last year.

Pecue and company-hired experts made presentati­ons Wednesday during the daylong meeting, the first public forum Taylor Energy has hosted since the leak started more than 11 years ago.

A moderator warned the audience of several dozen people that video and audio recordings of the meeting were prohibited. The moderator also said speakers would only answer questions put in writing.

One speaker asked Pecue to explain why he believes the leak was an “act of God.” Pecue declined to elaborate, citing “potential future litigation.”

“I can affirmativ­ely say that we do believe this was act of God under the legal definition,” he said. “Defining why we believe this is an ‘act of God event’ gets into a legal definition that is not appropriat­e for today.”

One of the environmen­tal advocates in the audience was retired Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, who directed emergency responders in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Honore, who founded a coalition of environmen­tal groups called “GreenARMY,” said he wants to see more transparen­cy from Taylor Energy and the regulators supervisin­g the company’s work on what he called a “man-made disaster.”

“If we didn’t put the [platform] there, this incident wouldn’t have happened,” he said. “I don’t blame God for what happened here.”

Taylor Energy, once one of the Gulf’s largest operators, sold all its offshore leases and oil and gas interests in 2008. Its founder, Patrick Taylor, died in 2004. The company is led by his widow, Phyllis Taylor, a prominent philanthro­pist and political donor.

Environmen­tal groups led by the New York City-based Waterkeepe­r Alliance sued Taylor Energy in 2012, arguing the public was entitled to know more about the company’s government-supervised work.

Taylor Energy said it has spent more than $480 million on its efforts to stop the leak. Earlier this month, the company filed a lawsuit against the federal government to recover approximat­ely $432 million that remains frozen in a trust, reserved for leakrespon­se work.

Last year, federal authoritie­s rebuffed the company’s settlement overtures and ordered it to perform more work at the leak site.

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