A Louisiana company has been fined $715,000 for crude oil spills and violations of the Clean Water Act and has been accused of failure to comply with the United States Coast Guard (USCG) order addressing a clean-up effort.
Under the U.S Department of Justice consent decree, ORB Exploration LLC (ORB) will pay $615,000 in federal penalties for crude oil spills and other Clean Water Act violations and $100,000 to Louisiana for civil penalties and response costs. The company will also have to carry out remedial measures to prevent future spills and improve spill response preparedness.
The crude oil spills occurred between 2013 and 2015 in and around the Gulf of Mexico from two of ORB’s Louisiana facilities at Frog Lake and Croxodile Bayou, both located in the Atchafalaya River Basin. The complaint alleges that ORB spilled over 1,000 barrels of Louisiana crude oil into the Atchafalaya River Basin during the three spills. The largest occurred at Frog Lake in 2013, after a corroded oil transfer pipeline ruptured in a flooded wetland area. The cleanup took over a year and a half and required significant State-federal cooperation. The other two releases occurred in September and October of 2015, from ORB’s Frog Lake and Crocodile Bayou oil production facilities into bayou waters surrounding the facilities.
The company has agreed to pay civil penalties and State response costs and will implement corrective measures to resolve alleged violations of the Clean Water Act and of Spill Prevention, Control and Countermeasure (SPCC) regulations at ORB’s Frog Lake oil storage barge.
According to Rear Admiral Dave Callahan, Eighth Coast Guard District Commander, “discharges of oil into navigable waters of the U.S. are an ongoing concern as they pose an obvious and serious risk to the marine environment. This enforcement action emphasises our dedication to protecting our natural resources and preventing future pollution from these facilities.”
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