It is long past time for a Louisiana oil company to stop court fights over one of the longest-lasting oil spills in history, and instead reach a settlement expediting efforts to combat the spill.
As the pace of subpoenas and depositions heats up — one key deposition is scheduled for Friday, Nov. 1 — it might be a good time for all sides to reconsider, rather than push further towards a lawsuit Armageddon.
Taylor Energy is an independent oil producer whose late founder, Patrick Taylor and his widow Phyllis have been much-appreciated philanthropists in and around New Orleans for decades. Seafloor upheavals caused by powerful Hurricane Ivan in 2004 toppled one of their production platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. The platform and its 28 wells were buried beneath some 150 feet of mud and sediment, and some of the wells began leaking.
That much, everyone agrees on. Beyond that, much has been in dispute. For years, Taylor and a government task force believed the spill, although continuing, was tiny, amounting to just a few gallons actually reaching the surface per day, and Taylor cooperated in efforts to contain it. Last fall, however, amid several reports that the continuing spill was exponentially larger than had previously been thought, Coast Guard Federal On-Scene Coordinator Captain Kristi Luttrell suddenly ordered Taylor to institute a much bigger containment system, almost immediately.
Taylor balked, arguing that it had been shown no peer-reviewed proof that the spill was so much larger, and that it had been provided absurdly little time to comply. In response, Luttrell further federalized the cleanup effort and hired a contractor, the Couvillion Group, to design and construct a new, more extensive system to contain and collect the leaking oil, while still ordering Taylor to continue paying for the effort.
Taylor sued the Coast Guard, arguing that its administrative-procedure rights and constitutional due process rights were being violated. Without getting bogged down in detail, suffice it to say that Taylor appeared to make at least some rather powerful points that the sudden shift in Coast Guard positions wasn’t fair to the oil company. The brief is compelling.
Somewhat oddly, Taylor also sued Couvillion, asking the court to make the contractor financially responsible for any environmental damage it might cause in furtherance of its contract with the Coast Guard. Indeed, Taylor is seeking “substantial damages” from Couvillion.
Those lawsuits, however, were filed last December. Since then, Couvillion has reported it has removed 201,782 gallons of oil, and counting, from the area of the leak. It is plain for all to see that the oil flow is significant and almost absurd to contend that Couvillion’s efforts aren’t helping abate it.
Taylor claims the government still isn’t providing adequate data to prove either that the flow is as big as the government says, or that Couvillion has been effective at containing it. Looked at one way, Taylor’s claims are self-contradictory: The company says the leak isn’t really that bad, but it’s so bad that Couvillion isn’t able to stem it. Its web site claims: “There is no evidence of a leaking well, remnant oil released from the site is minimal, and further intervention could release significant quantities of oil into the water column and negatively impact the environment.” These claims are based on “aerial surveys.”
Confronted with an official government survey, one that actually took samples from the water rather than mere aerial observation, Taylor responds: “It is impossible to draw sound conclusions based on just seven days of field data.” Taylor further says the government repeatedly has refused to comply with Freedom of Information requests for more data.
Hmmm … Let’s peer through all the smoke. From the viewpoint of a semi-educated layman, both the government and Taylor are quite unnecessarily playing hardball on the legal front. Taylor’s suit against Couvillion is particularly ill-advised, as the company is merely performing work pursuant to its contract with the Coast Guard. Taylor’s real dispute is with the Coast Guard, not the engineering firm.
The public’s interest is in keeping the oil from further polluting the Gulf of Mexico. That public interest should be paramount. The Coast Guard and Taylor Energy should begin cooperating again. That means, first, settling the lawsuit. Perhaps the Coast Guard ought to pay Taylor’s legal fees (and those of the innocent Couvillion), incurred in response to the Coast Guard’s high-handed, procedurally questionable orders to Taylor last fall. It would be a small price for taxpayers when compared to the hundreds of millions Taylor is paying for cleanup efforts.
Yet Taylor should stop denying the obvious. The oil leak is bad, and it must be mitigated. It may have been caused by the “act of God” of Hurricane Ivan, but any continuing damages will rightly be blamed on the intransigence of Taylor Energy.
