In the Gulf, a long history of oil spills and cover-ups

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http://grist.org/climate-energy/in-the-gulf-a-long-history-of-oil-spills-and-cover-ups/

When BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in 2010, it hemorrhaged roughly 210 million gallons of crude into the Gulf of Mexico. We know now, thanks to recent court hearings and settlements, that all this happened because oil company managers were cutting corners on safety, and the federal government’s monitoring system for offshore drilling was broken.

We also know that it wasn’t the first time oil companies had spilled in the Gulf. What we don’t know — and probably never will — is how much oil has been spilled. Even now, three years after the Deepwater disaster, many spills go unreported. And now we’re learning that even when companies report spills, they sometimes try to deceive regulatory agencies and the public into thinking their spills caused no harm to Gulf waters.

A recent Department of Justice case offers a glimpse into a practice that some industry workers say is commonplace in offshore operations. The case revealed that one Gulf-based oil company failed to report a major spill it was responsible for in 2009, and had some of its workers “collect” fake water samples so that federal authorities would think no contamination occurred.

Houston-based W&T Offshore plead guilty in January to not alerting federal authorities about its 2009 oil spill near the Louisiana coast. Company officials also admitted to doctoring water samples taken from spill areas.