Anglo-Suisse Offshore Partners issued a statement last night expressing "surprise" that what it claimed was a minor leak from a well that's been out of use for some time could have produced miles-long slicks that garnered national media attention. The company has been in the process of permanently plugging the well -- located in a shallow area about 30 miles southeast of Grand Isle, La. Anglo-Suisse owned a cluster of five platforms in that area that were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.Over the past year, as we've become more familiar with the negative effects of having so much oil and gas infrastructure just offshore, I've come to wonder what it means, exactly to "permanently plug" a well and how many more "surprises" we can expect from the innumerable holes in the ocean floor that have been bored and plugged over the years.
Also wondering if we'll ever be able to accurately gauge the number and severity of such surprises since, well,
The confusion surrounding this latest Gulf spill points up a fatal flaw of America's oil pollution reporting system, which operates via a virtual honor code. Under present reporting protocols, polluters are tasked with the responsibility of turning themselves in when they're responsible for an accident -- knowing all the while that a federal inspector will probably never be dispatched to investigate.
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