Louisiana officials worry there are more to come
MAY 06, 2025
A little more than a month ago, Plaquemines Parish officials were toasting a landmark $745-million judgment against Chevron for damaging the marshes and coastal fishing areas of Louisiana.
The celebration of their rare victory was cut short on April 26, however, when an inactive, 83-year-old oil well off the southern Louisiana coast suddenly burst, gushing a toxic brew of oil and gas into the bayou’s marshlands and fishing grounds.
The U.S. Coast Guard and a state emergency response team scrambled to shut off the well, but were hampered by shallow waters in the remote Garden Island Bay area of the bayou. It took them nine days to finally stop the flow of oil and gas.
Money Trail has confirmed that the well was first drilled in 1942 by Texaco, then called the Texas Company, according to the Coast Guard and documents on file with the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources (LDNR). Texaco continued to operate the well until 2000, the Coast Guard told Money Trail.
Chevron acquired Texaco in 2001 in a merger valued at $36 billion. The Texaco brand name is no longer in use.
LDNR records indicate that the oil well was operated by a succession of several smaller companies and was last owned by Spectrum OpCo, an oil and gas operator in Louisiana owned by Spectrum Energy, which is based in Houston.
The emergency response effort included at least 170 personnel, a dozen oil skimmers, and several miles of boom. On Sunday, the Coast Guard said it had recovered more than 70,000 gallons of oily mix from the well and that cleanup operations were underway. It also said it has launched an investigation into the well’s status and what caused the accident.
Spectrum emailed its first public statement on Sunday after the well had been closed. “Spectrum OpCo sincerely regrets the incident and its potential impact on our neighbors” its statement read in part, “and remains fully engaged and resolutely committed to assisting with the cleanup.”
So far there are no reports of major wildlife impacts, although the blowout occurred near a wildlife preserve and there are concerns about the threat it poses to endangered turtles and shrimp fishing grounds.
“ It’s just pristine wetlands as far as you can see, and now there’s this huge black scar,” Justin Solet with True Transition told WWNO public radio. “It’s like a gaping wound from the pictures I’ve seen. It’s just reminiscent of what happened 15 years ago during the BP drilling disaster.”
Why wasn’t the well plugged properly?
Questions remain about why a well first drilled during World War II was not permanently plugged a decade ago after it was no longer in use. The Coast Guard confirmed to Money Trail that the well was not permanently capped to enable an owner to restart production in the future. “The well was reportedly secured via closed valves in 2016,” the Coast Guard said in an email. “No cement was poured or injected to plug and abandon the well at that time.”
“It’s been years since we had a major oil spill like this,” Patrick Harvey, director of Plaquemines Parish’s emergency preparedness office told Money Trail. “But we get a lot of smaller spills reported, maybe a couple hundred a year.” That said, other, even smaller, spills from poorly maintained and constructed wells—especially ones built decades ago—are common and are not reported at all.
Selling out to the devil
Plaquemines Parish Councilman Mitch Jurisich, a powerful voice in the Louisiana fishing industry and chair of the Louisiana Oyster Task Force, has argued for more oversight of the oil industry, which studies show has significantly damaged the state’s coastal fishing grounds.
He worries about the thousands of unplugged and abandoned wells that litter the bayou’s rich marshes and fishing grounds that could explode without warning. Studies suggest there could be as many as 14,000 abandoned wells that were not properly plugged and shut down across the state and offshore that would cost at least $30 billion to properly plug and close.
“We sold ourselves to the devil when we allowed all these oil companies to come in here,” Jurisich said in an interview with Money Trail. “We have laws that they were supposed to restore everything to the way they found it…. Now look what’s happened.”
Jurisich was a major force behind the fishing industry’s opposition to a $3-billion Mississippi River diversion project supported by the state and a handful of environmental groups, including the Environmental Defense Fund and National Wildlife Federation, funded by the Walton Family Foundation. Studies show the massive project would have damaged shrimp and oyster fishing and threatenedthousands of dolphins.
The state has since backed off its river diversion plans and new information has come to light questioning the amount of land it would have created. (See Money Trail’s coverage of the river diversion plans posted last month.)
Big oil companies dodge cleanup responsibility
Jurisich says the new Plaquemines Parish oil spill is yet another example of a major oil company selling a less-productive well to a smaller company that does not have the resources to pay for an expensive cleanup. It’s a disaster waiting to happen, he says.
“When the big oil companies sell off to the smaller ones, that removes them from liability,” Jurisich said. “That’s just the way it works.”
Other Louisiana communities are hoping the courts will help them restore the damage the industry has inflicted on their coasts. Currently there are 40 lawsuits filed by coastal communities against oil and gas interests awaiting trial. If Plaquemines Parish’s $745-million court victory does indeed set a precedent, oil companies that have despoiled so much will have to finally pay for what they have done.
Rocky Kistner, Money Trail’s associate editor, previously worked as a reporter and producer at ABC News, the Center for Investigative Reporting, HuffPost, Marketplace and PBS Frontline.