{"id":47197,"date":"2021-12-22T23:26:45","date_gmt":"2021-12-22T23:26:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=47197"},"modified":"2021-12-22T23:26:45","modified_gmt":"2021-12-22T23:26:45","slug":"us-475m-settlement-proposed-in-longest-running-oil-spill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=47197","title":{"rendered":"US: $475M settlement proposed in longest-running oil spill"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A New Orleans-based oil firm agreed to pay a $432m clean-up trust fund and fork up an additional $43m to settle the federal lawsuit.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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A New Orleans-based oil company has agreed to turn over a $432m clean-up trust fund and pay an additional $43m to settle a federal lawsuit over cleaning up abandoned wells leaking since 2004, federal prosecutors said Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis settlement represents an important down payment to address impacts from the longest-running oil spill in U.S. history,\u201d Nicole LeBoeuf, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency\u2019s National Ocean Service, said in a news release from the United States Department of Justice.<\/p>\n

Attorneys for Taylor Oil Co., which agreed to drop three lawsuits challenging government clean-up orders and measures, did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment. As is common in such agreements, the proposed settlement said Taylor does not admit any liability.<\/p>\n

US District Judge Greg Gerard Guidry will decide whether to approve the proposed consent decree after a 40-day public comment period.<\/p>\n

Sixteen wells off Louisiana have been leaking since September 2004, when a subsea mudslide caused by Hurricane Ivan knocked over a Taylor production platform, dragging and breaking a cluster of pipes. Taylor plugged nine wells but has said it cannot plug the rest.<\/p>\n

The settlement requires Taylor to drop its other lawsuits. In June, a federal\u00a0appeals court\u00a0agreed that a district judge was right to throw out a trespass suit against a federal contractor that created a system to capture most of the oil.<\/p>\n

That system has captured and removed more than 800,000 gallons (3 million litres) of oil since April 2019, Coast Guard captain Will Watson, sector commander in New Orleans, said in the news release.<\/p>\n

\u201cDespite being a catalyst for beneficial environmental technological innovation, the damage to our ecosystem caused by this 17-year-old oil spill is unacceptable,\u201d said Duane A Evans, US attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana.<\/p>\n

Taylor\u2019s\u00a0website\u00a0states that it sold all its oil and gas assets in 2008 and exists now only to respond to the toppled platform. The company has agreed to turn over all remaining assets after liquidation, the government said.<\/p>\n

The trust fund was created to plug the wells, permanently decommission the facility, and clean contaminated soil. One of Taylor\u2019s suits, filed in 2016, sought to get back the remaining money, claiming regulators had broken the agreement requiring it to put $666m into the fund.<\/p>\n

The company also had appealed the Coast Guard\u2019s rejection of its claim for $353m in clean-up costs.<\/p>\n

The trust fund will be transferred to the Department of the Interior under the settlement. The additional $43m \u2014 all of the company\u2019s remaining assets \u2014 is for civil penalties, removal costs and natural resource damages, the news release said.<\/p>\n

It includes $15m for a civil penalty, $16.5m for natural resources damage, and more than $12m for Coast Guard removal costs.<\/p>\n

The company cannot interfere with the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement\u2019s decommissioning work or the Coast Guard\u2019s oil containment and removal, and will turn over all studies, reports and other documents about the site.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A New Orleans-based oil firm agreed to pay a $432m clean-up trust fund and fork up an additional $43m to settle the federal lawsuit.A New Orleans-based oil company has agreed to turn over a $432m clean-up trust fund and pay an additional $43m to settle a federal lawsuit over cleaning up abandoned wells leaking since…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spotlight_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47197\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}