Satellite photos have captured aerial views of an oil spill within the Gulf of Mexico per week after Hurricane Ida pummeled the area.
Hurricane Ida made landfall close to Port Fourchon, Louisiana, as a Category 4 hurricane on Aug. 29, bringing sustained winds of round 150 mph (240 kph), torrential rainfall and a strong storm surge, inflicting flooding alongside a lot of the coast. The hurricane additionally seems to have prompted a large oil spill within the Gulf of Mexico that’s seen from space in Sept. 4 photos captured by a Maxar Technologies satellite.
Divers recognized a ruptured pipeline, positioned about 2 miles (3 kilometers) south of Port Fourchon, because the underwater supply of the spill. The pipeline, measuring 1 foot (30 centimeters) in diameter, was displaced from a trench on the ocean flooring in the course of the storm, inflicting it to burst open, the Associated Press reported.
Related: Hurricane Ida from space: Photos from astronauts and satellites
The satellite photos present oil slicks, or darkish brown and black streaks of oil floating on the floor of the water, close to the East Timbalier National Wildlife Refuge, south of Port Fourchon.
Cleanup crews are working within the space to mitigate the oil spill, which spans not less than 10 miles (16 km) and seems to be drifting eastward alongside the Gulf Coast, based on the Associated Press. The damaged pipe is positioned in comparatively shallow water, roughly 34 ft (10 meters) deep.
So far, experiences recommend that the oil spill has remained out to sea and never impacted the Louisiana shoreline. While crews have but to supply an estimate of how a lot oil has leaked into the water, the speed at which oil was showing on the ocean floor has slowed, based on the Associated Press report.
Divers investigating the world additionally discovered two extra, smaller pipelines which are open and apparently deserted. While it isn’t clear whether or not these pipelines, which measure 4 inches (10 cm) in diameter, are additionally leaking oil, the Maxar satellite photos present not less than three completely different slicks in the identical space.
Talos Energy, a Houston-based firm, employed Clean Gulf Associates — a nonprofit oil-spill response cooperative — to mitigate additional unfold of the oil. The oil firm can be investigating the reason for the leak, regardless that they’ve mentioned that the damaged pipeline doesn’t belong to them.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) additionally shared aerial views captured on Sept. 2 of the world the place the oil spill occurred. The NOAA photos present a darkish streak — a sign of thick, heavy oil — surrounded by a rainbow sheen, The New York Times reported.
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