oil spills

Prepare facilities and frontline employees to respond to oil sheens and spills

January 17, 2021

Frontline workers are usually the first to discover oil leaks, drips and spills — whether it's discovered upon arrival, found during a routine inspection or is the result of an operational error.

Settlement with giant oil processor to help prevent, prepare for accidental spills

August 21, 2018

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 7 have entered into a consent decree with Ag Processing, Inc. (AGP) to ensure compliance with oil pollution prevention requirements of the Clean Water Act (CWA). As part of the settlement, the company has agreed to implement specific preventative measures to ensure future compliance and improve accidental spill response.

BNSF train spills 230K gallons of crude oil into river

August 15, 2018

Excessive rainfall that washed out a portion of the track was one of the factors in a June 22, 2018 train accident that released more than a quarter of a million gallons of crude oil into the Little Rock River, according to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).

Democrats call for renewed offshore safety program

March 7, 2018

The U.S. government should continue rigorous inspection of offshore oil and gas development, more than a dozen Democratic senators said. The Department of Interior was called on to continue a study of the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement's inspection program for offshore development. A group of 19 U.S. senators, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, pointed to lessons learned from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010 as why continued rig inspections are necessary.

Marine incident causes injuries, toxic release

March 2, 2018

An equipment failure led to a Sept. 6, 2016 incident in the Houston Ship Channel that left two marine pilots with burns and discharged 88,000 gallons of low-sulfur marine gas oil – which subsequently caught on fire. That’s the finding of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). The agency’s investigation into the incident found that a momentary failure of a ship’s governor actuator system caused the tank vessel Aframax River to violently strike two mooring “dolphins” - man-made marine structures extending above the water level.

Containment tips to limit oil spill cleanup

Damage control

Donny Beaver

February 12, 2018

The National Ocean Service reports that contaminants enter the environment from a variety of sources2, in addition to the spills that you see on the news. Even perfectly functioning equipment has a tendency to leak oil.

On the front lines: Prepare workers for outdoor oil & fuel spills

Donny Beaver

October 10, 2017

What if we told you that preparing a proactive front-line approach to oil spills could help reduce your overall risk, preventing a minor spill from becoming a major EHS catastrophe?

Environmentalists angry over another oil spill.

April 21, 2016

As cleanup continues at the site of the latest spill along the Keystone I tar sands pipeline, news broke this week of yet another oil pipeline spill.

BP to pay biggest environmental settlement ever

July 3, 2015

Five years after the worst oil spill in history, the company that caused it has agreed to an historic $18+ billion settlement with the five Gulf States that were affected by the environmental disaster. The total also includes $5.5 billion in Clean Water Act penalties.

Train derails in Penn., spilling thousands of gallons of oil

Company official says spill is “contained”

February 14, 2014

Less than two months after a similar incident in North Dakota, a train carrying crude oil derailed yesterday in Pennsylvania, spilling an estimated 3-4,000 gallons of oil. Twenty-one tank cars of the 120-car Norfolk Southern Corp. train left the tracks at a turn near the Kiskiminetas River in Vandergrift, a small town in western Pennsylvania.