Oil and Gas accidents

More train derailments or blowouts

5.7 million litres of oil spilled in Lac-Mégantic

Montreal Gazette

22 July, 2013

MONTREAL — It might take weeks before the extent of the damage from the July 6 train derailment in Lac-Mégantic is known, but 16 days after a train carrying crude oil crashed into the heart of Lac-Mégantic, the provincial government has revealed just how much oil appears to have been spilled.

There were 7.2 million litres of light crude oil aboard the ill-fated Montreal Main & Atlantic Railway train, but Quebec’s Department of Sustainable Development, Environment and Parks says about 5.7 million litres were released into the air, water and soil during the derailment.

Of the 72 tankers, which were carrying 100,000 litres each, only nine withstood the impact. Twenty tankers were completely emptied, and an additional 43 — with an estimated 600,000 litres among them — were drained and moved in the cleanup efforts following the deadly explosion.

Earlier reports indicate it took first responders roughly 72 hours after the crash to plug the spilling crude and minimize damage to the nearby Chaudière River, which has its source in Lac Mégantic. Using a dam between the lake and the river, as well as a system of downstream dikes, cleanup crews slowed the flow of contaminated water and were able to pump it out.

The department said that as of Friday, 150,000 litres of oily water had been removed from the lake, and confirmed 51,200 gallons had been removed from the river. All pools of oil on Lac Mégantic have been recovered as well.

Since the oil in the tankers was a light crude, it has been easier for cleanup crews to remove because it floats on water.

“It is still too early to make an overall assessment of the situation,” the department said in an official news release on Monday afternoon, “however, an aerial survey conducted on July 21 reveals no traces of oil on the river, and the points of sporadic accumulation observed last week have disappeared.”

Only small deposits of oil were observed by respondents upstream and downstream of the Sartigan dam in nearby St-Georges.

Following the water cleanup, the land in Lac-Mégantic’s city centre will still have to be decontaminated.

Officials said Monday that some houses in the Red Zone — the epicentre of the accident — will have to be destroyed if they stand on soil that is too badly contaminated.

Inspectors are determining which structures will be taken down on a house-by-house basis.

44 evacuated after rig blows out in Gulf of Mexico

Forty-four workers were evacuated from a natural gas platform in the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday after a blowout occurred, according to officials.

CNN,

23 July, 2013

Crew members aboard the Hercules 265 were preparing the well for production when they hit an unexpected pocket of gas.

No injuries were reported.

Officials had said earlier that 47 workers were evacuated.

While gas is flowing from the well, "no oil is being released," according to the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement.

The platform, about 60 miles southwest of Grand Isle, Louisiana, is leased by Houston-based Walter Oil & Gas Corporation. The company did not respond to CNN's requests for comment Tuesday.

A light sheen about a half-mile wide was spotted by environmental inspectors, but was "dissipating almost immediately," the safety bureau said.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=2GBMuV2Nn4Q