Oil leak off Louisiana coast contained but clean up continues, Coast Guard says

After more than a week of oil shooting vertically out of an unused well off the coast of Louisiana, the U.S. Coast Guard announced Sunday evening that the offshore well blowout — first reported on April 26 — has been controlled. 

The well had been leaking oil and natural gas in a 30 to 40-foot-high “geyser of oil,” as one witness described, contaminating nearby marshland and protected Gulf Coast habitats, and prompting a large-scale emergency response. 

“Gaining control of the discharge is a vital milestone, but it marks only the beginning of our work. The Unified Command is fully committed to an exhaustive cleanup effort and will remain on site for as long as necessary to ensure the removal of oil and the safety of both the community and the ecosystem,” said U.S. Coast Guard Capt. Greg Callaghan,, a federal on-scene coordinator who was monitoring the leak.

The federal government assumed control of the response effort on Thursday, with the Coast Guard taking over coordination from Spectrum Opco, the company operating the well, along with the Louisiana Oil Spill Coordinator’s Office. Cleanup and mitigation efforts are ongoing, involving National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Coast Guard and multiple state and local agencies, as well as private contractors hired by the owner of the well. 

The Coast Guard said one “oiled bird” had been spotted near the spill site, but had not been captured. The agency said no other wildlife impacts have yet been reported. However, federal maps online indicate pollutants have drifted into a protected area for endangered sea turtles.

NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration, which provides scientific support during oil and chemical spills, has recently seen a drastic reduction in staffing. According to former employees who spoke with CBS News, that office alone lost 30 of its 85 staff members following cost-cutting measures the Trump administration implemented under the White House’s Department of Government Efficiency initiative.

The Office of Response and Restoration staff members respond to about 150 incidents a year and provide training to around 1,000 individuals from government and private businesses on “the scientific aspects of oil and chemical spill response,” according to its website. Former federal disaster response specialists and national environmental groups are concerned about the program office’s ability to have the capacity to continue that mission and respond to emergencies like the Louisiana oil spill. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has pushed to expand offshore oil drilling and accelerate the permitting process, reducing timelines from the current one- to two-year to just weeks.

Authorities have not released information about the cause of the blowout or the total volume of oil released into the Louisiana Gulf Coast’s marshlands. However, a report filed with the Coast Guard’s National Response Center stated that “the amount discharged could potentially reach the threshold of a major spill for coastal waters—over 100,000 gallons.” The report was made publicly available by the nonprofit watchdog group SkyTruth that monitors environmental hazards around the world using satellite images.

So far, the Coast Guard says it has collected about 70,000 gallons of an oily watery mixture from the spill area.

The incident highlights a broader challenge faced by Louisiana and other states: the growing problem of orphaned and aging oil wells. The 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law allocated $4.7 billion to cap orphan wells nationwide. Louisiana received $25 million, which allowed the state to plug 500 wells — though more than 4,000 are estimated to still be uncapped, according to the state. They are expected to receive $86 million more in the coming years — potentially leaving more than half of the state’s uncapped wells more vulnerable to incidents like the current spill in Garden Island Bay. 

This particular well, known as Well #59, was not abandoned, but according to the Coast Guard, it had not had measurable oil pressure since the 1990s. The Coast Guard says it was secured when it was closed from use in 2016.

“The well was secured via closing the valves … (and) no cement was poured or injected to plug and abandon the well at that time,” Coast Guard public information officer Phillip Vanderweit said.

Due to the remote nature of the spill site, among other challenges, it took about a week for capping equipment to arrive on scene. Oil sprayed for eight recorded days until the leak was capped Sunday.

Community members of the nearest inhabitable land to the spill site in Plaquemines Parish tell CBS News leaks like the Well #59 incident happen frequently, and that many oil leaks can continue to spill for quite some time, until a passerby happens to see them.

A recent study estimates there are more than 14,000 unplugged oil and gas wells in the Gulf of Mexico alone.