Coast Guard Sued over Gulf Oil Leak Cover Up

(Photo Credit: Officer of the Watch.com)

If any doubt exists about the U.S. military’s role in Gulf of Mexico (GOM) oil disasters, a lawsuit against one of its branches that was filed Tuesday might convince some non-believers. Tuesday, Lower Mississippi Riverkeeper, in collaboration with Waterkeeper Alliance and several GOM Waterkeeper organizations, filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the United States Coast Guard over unfulfilled requests for public records related to Taylor Energy’s ongoing oil leak in the Gulf.

Previous requests to the Coast Guard for information about the Gulf oil leak have been denied.

“We filed this suit to stop the spill and lift the veil of secrecy surrounding Taylor Oil’s eight-year long response and recovery operation,” explained Marc Yaggi, executive director of Waterkeeper Alliance. Neither the government nor Taylor will answer basic questions related to the spill response, citing privacy concerns.” 

“The public deserves to know how this spill happened and why it continues,” Riverkeeper Alliance stated in a written statement on Wednesday. “Coastal communities should understand the risks involved in developing off-shore oil resources and what protections are in place to prevent damage from future spills.”

“This incident is just one, if particularly egregious, example of a chronic oil and gas pollution problem in the Gulf of Mexico,” Paul Orr had said just over one year ago.

The problem involves what is increasingly known as the petrochemical-military-industrial-complex, PMIC.

Military cover up of Gulf oil leak

The lawsuit challenges the U.S. Coast Guard’s denial of two FOIA requests, arguing that Gulf Coast residents and the broader American public have a stake in oil spills and leaks in the Gulf, as well as the Coast Guard’s handling of those leaks. 

“The groups are bringing the suit because the Coast Guard has yet to provide responsive documents to the Plaintiffs or the public about the cause of the leak, the volume of oil being leaked, what is being done to stop the leak, when the leak will be stopped, and other relevant and important information contained in public records,” Riverkeeper stated.

The FOIA lawsuit comes more than a year after the groups filed a Clean Water Act/RCRA lawsuit in the Eastern District Court of Louisiana against Taylor Energy over hundreds of gallons of oil leaking everyday from the Taylor Energy site, where an offshore platform and 28 oil wells owned by Taylor Energy Co. were damaged by a seafloor mudslide triggered by Hurricane Ivan in 2004. 

The lawsuit has faced continued delays as the Judge refuses to allow discovery to begin before ruling on Taylor’s motion to dismiss the case, which has been before the court for more than seven months.

The Taylor Oil spill is emblematic of a broken system, where oil production is prioritized over concerns for human health and the environment,” Justin Bloom, Eastern Regional Director of Waterkeeper Alliance said last year.

“The Taylor Oil spill is emblematic of a broken system, where oil production is prioritized over concerns for human health and the environment,” said Paul Orr, the Lower Mississippi Riverkeeper. “Nearly three years after the Deepwater Horizon Spill, none of the comprehensive reforms recommended by the National Oil Spill Commission have been enacted and Congress has yet to pass a single law to better protect workers, the environment or coastal communities.”

A copy of the complaint is available on request.

The groups bringing the lawsuit are: Atchfalaya Basinkeeper, Baton Rouge, LA; Galveston Baykeeper, Galveston, TX, Lower Mississippi Riverkeeper, Baton Rouge, LA; Louisiana Bayoukeeper, Barataria, LA; Louisiana Environmental Action Network, Baton Rouge, LA, and Waterkeeper Alliance, New York, NY. Plaintiffs are represented by the Tulane Environmental Law Clinic.

Taylor Energy, LLC. was founded in 1979 by Patrick F. Taylor who died in 2004. His wife Phyllis Taylor assumed ownership and is chairman and CEO — making her the wealthiest woman in Louisiana.

It’s the lies and cover up that makes the BP trial as important as it is, according to environmental attorney Stuart Smith.

“This is why the BP trial is so important on so many levels,” Smith wrote on his blog Tuesday. “The more the public learns about the shoddy practices of Big Oil, the more Americans should line up behind strict but sensible regulation.

“But the only thing that really gets through to the oil tycoons is the threat of seeing billions of dollars slip through their greedy hands. That is what the government is threatening to take from BP.”

The day the same threat is made against the military is the day change for the betterment of humanity will really happen.

_______

Human Rights news reporter Deborah Dupré is author of “Vampire of Macondo, Life, crimes and curses in south Louisiana that Powerful Forces Don’t want you to know,” 450 pages packed with mainstream media’s censored stories about the BP-wrecked Macondo Prospect in the Gulf of Mexico that continues catastrophic human and environmental devastation. 

Follow Dupré on Twitter @DeborahDupre. For interviews, email [email protected].