Houston, 11 September (Argus) — BP said it needs to clean up residual amounts of crude from the 2010 Macondo oil spill in the US Gulf of Mexico that was recently churned up by Hurricane Isaac, which made landfall in Louisiana late last month.
The storm exposed buried oil on Gulf coast shorelines, and BP has submitted a plan to do “deep cleaning” of those areas, the company said.
Tropical storm Bonnie in July 2010 pushed sand towards the shore, burying oil that workers were cleaning up, BP said. Hurricane Isaac moved the sand again when it tore through the Gulf, uncovering buried tar mats from the Macondo disaster that BP is now asking permission to remedy.
BP was previously permitted to clean to depths of 4-5ft on Gulf coast amenity beaches and is now proposing to do the same in certain areas of Louisiana where it was previously barred from cleaning beyond a depth of 18 inches due, in part, to concerns about environmental harm.
“It is our belief that Isaac has now changed the dynamics by removing sand that covered those tar mats. We now have the ability to go in and clean without the same degree of environmental impact,” Mike Utsler, president of BP's Gulf coast restoration organization, said.
The company said it hopes to move quickly due to waves and tides re-depositing sand and silt on top of the exposed oil.
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