LAFOURCHE PARISH, La. — Residents and business owners in the area around Bayou Lafourche say Saturday’s oil spill is nothing like they have ever seen before.
Lionel Harris, owner of Nick’s Seafood on LA-1 in Raceland, arrived at work to find two deputies outside his shop. They told him not to light anything. “There was lots of oil all over, the bayou smell like diesel,” he said he noticed immediately, “I came to walk in the back and it was smelling real bad.”
The spill came from the Crescent Midstream facility in Raceland. The Lafourche Parish Government said it was first reported a little before 8 a.m. Saturday. The oil poured into a stormwater canal near the Mill Street bridge and then into the bayou. By Saturday afternoon, the oil slick stretched the entire length of Raceland.
“No spill is acceptable to our company,” said Michael Smith, Crescent Midstream’s Public Information Officer. He and Lafourche Parish President Archie Chaisson held a press conference Saturday to give an update on the spill.
Smith said the company is still investigating the cause of the spill. It also did not have an estimate of how much oil had leaked. Already, though, Chaisson called it an unprecedented amount. “It's the first time we've ever seen this sort of release in Bayou Lafourche at this southern juncture,” he said Saturday.
He also noted that four parishes get their drinking water from Bayou Lafourche. At the time of the press conference, the Parish had not issued any water quality advisories related to the spill. Chaisson said the edge of the slick was being held by booms miles from the water intake.
Residents, however, are being asked to limit water use in case the Parish does need to shut off water at some point. “We've never been through this before,” said Chaisson, “so we're working with LDH, our partners here to figure out what exactly other requirements they may put on us because water is still flowing as the crude oil sits on top of it.”
Smith said reports of oiled wildlife had already come in. The Bayou is also closed to marine traffic while crews handle the spill.
“I hope it don’t mess up the fishing industry, but it doesn’t look real good as of right now,” said Harris. He explained that while Bayou Lafourche is mostly trafficked by recreational fishermen, there are some commercial crabbers, who “might feel it for a while because I’m sure this amount of oil, this massive oil spill, is going to hurt for a while.”
Johnny Foret, who sells watermelons along LA-1 nearly every day, agreed. “Across the highway from us,” he said, referring to a small recreational area, “you have people fishing every day. That’s pretty much over for a long time.”
He also said he had started the day on the other side of the road, closest to the bayou. “The smell, it really turns your stomach, it’s really bad,” he said.
Smith said Crescent Midstream is monitoring air quality near the site of the spill and has not detected any concerning levels of toxins. “We want to put no one in harm's way, so we jumped on that air monitoring very fast,” he said.
The company has also set up a hotline for reporting oiled wildlife at (832) 514-9663. They urge the public not to move any oiled animals they see, saying they will be treated locally by professionals.
WWL Louisiana asked Chaisson whether Crescent Midstream could face any legal consequences for the spill. He said federal and state agencies are investigating and once they come out with a report, “the fines and penalties would come after that.”
In the meantime, residents see the thick, black oil and expect impacts to last for a long time. “I’m sure this massive oil spill is gonna hurt for a while,” said Harris. “We never saw this before.”
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