Harvey toppled storage tanks in the oil patch, spilled nearly 2,000 barrels

By Collin Eaton
Published 8:49 am, Tuesday, September 12, 2017



Photo: David J. Phillip, STF
FILE - In a Thursday, Sept. 11, 2008 photo, a Marathon Oil Co. petrochemical facility is shown in Texas City, Texas.The Gulf oil spill may have people ready to quit petroleum cold turkey, but it's not that easy. Oil is everywhere. It permeates our daily lives in ways we never think about. It's in carpeting, furniture, computers and clothing. It's in the most personal of products like toothpaste, shaving cream, lipstick and vitamin capsules. Petrochemicals are the glue of our modern lives and even in glue, too. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip, File)


Soon after Hurricane Harvey reached Texas, several huge steel tanks owned by one oil company sprung free from their piping and toppled over, tearing flowlines and spewing hundreds of barrels of oil and waste water some 100 miles west of Houston.

EnerVest Operating told state regulators its storage tanks spilled 1,117 barrels, or almost 47,000 gallons, of crude and so-called produced water at eight separate well sites in Fayette County. Some of the crude flowed through the flood waters into the Colorado River.

The Houston driller did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Units of 15 energy companies including Linn Energy, Chesapeake Energy and Flint Hills Resources spilled almost 2,000 barrels of oil and waste water in almost two dozen Harvey-related incidents reported to the Texas Railroad Commission.

That figure is likely a conservative estimate because regulators did not know how much oil had gushed into the flood waters in seven of the spills. Oil companies are not required to report waste water spills to state regulators.

"This is the tip of the iceberg," said Luke Metzger, director of Environment Texas in Austin.

Burlington Resources reported the biggest individual accident caused by Hurricane Harvey, a spill of 461 barrels of oil and waste water in De Witt County, 150 miles west of Houston. Four of the company's 500-barrel storage tanks fell over, knocked down by flood waters from the Sandies Creek.

http://www.chron.com/business/energy...h-12191055.php