Crescent Midstream Oil Spill

On July 27, 2024, at 9:49 AM, the EPA was notified by the National Response Center of a spill of an unknown amount of crude oil from a storage tank at a Crescent Midstream facility located in Raceland, Lafourche Parish, Louisiana.  According to the Responsible Party (RP), an above ground storage tank feeding an overflow storage tank released crude oil into secondary containment. The crude oil then migrated through an open valve within the secondary containment area and released an unknown amount of crude oil into Bayou Lafourche. Bayou Lafourche is classified as  Waters of the United States (WOTUS) . The total volume of crude oil released has been estimated by Crescent Midstream to be approximately 820 barrels of crude oil.  This estimate includes material on-site as well as off-site. Crescent Midstream will provide an updated estimate of amount released to the Bayou after further calculations. Approximately 3.5 miles of bayou at 80 feet in width, has been impacted by the spill.  The RP currently has contractors on-site conducting an assessment and beginning recovery operations.

EPA and its technical assistance contractor (START) were activated and mobilized to the incident. EPA will assess the spill area, integrate into on-site Unified Command, and provide federal oversight to the RP on cleanup actions. The spill location is in the EPA’s Area of Responsibility; therefore, EPA is the lead agency. 

The Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ), the Louisiana Oil Spill Coordinators Office (LOSCO), the Lafourche Parish President, and the Crescent Midstream (RP) have formed Unified Command (UC) and are on site conducting an assessment and ensuring necessary response actions on Bayou Lafourche to clean up the spill in accordance with the National Contingency Plan. The UC is focusing on the downstream Lafourche Parish Water District to ensure the drinking water intake is not impacted. The UC is coordinating with the US Coast Guard to ensure their jurisdictional zone is not impacted.

To explore the map and data points, use the “+” at the bottom right of the map to zoom in or the “-“ to zoom out.

On July 27, 2024, the RP hired oil spill response contractors to begin containment and removal procedures. Initial booms were deployed to limit the migration of crude oil further down Bayou Lafourche and allow for recovery. The contractors are using boat skimmers and drum skimmers to remove bulk crude oil from the surface of the Bayou. For hard to reach areas, sorbent material is used to remove the oil.

Maintenance phase is when all recoverable oil has been removed from the water and the use of skimmers and vacuum trucks is no longer an effective cleanup strategy. Some minor cleanup actions may continue using sorbent materials. The crew may also address the shoreline contamination as per unified command agreed upon plans and strategies.

You can view  additional information  and daily updates regarding the cleanup at the Notices section on the  Crescent Midstream Oil Spill website .

The graph below shows the daily recovery of oil water mixture removed from Bayou Lafourche.

All liquid recovery efforts from the Bayou Lafourche are complete. Further recovery will take place using sorbent materials or other physical means.

EPA conducted community air monitoring with an X-PID air monitoring meter. The detection limit for benzene on the X-PID meter is 0.05 parts per million (ppm). The incident-specific community action level for benzene is 0.50 ppm. Benzene was not detected at levels above action level throughout EPA's community air monitoring effort.

The responsible party’s contractor, CTEH, is also actively conducting air monitoring in the community using handheld devices. They have also not detected any levels of Benzene above the action level.

To explore the map and data points, use the “+” at the bottom right of the map to zoom in or the “-“ to zoom out. The map and data table below shows the EPA community air monitoring results.