According to Reuters, the United States Coast Guard was still investigating the source of a leak from a submerged pipeline in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana, which it said had spilled over a million gallons of crude oil.
Following the finding of crude oil 19 miles offshore of the Mississippi River Delta, in Plaquemines Parish, southeast of New Orleans, Main Pass Oil Gathering Co. (abbreviated MPOG) closed the 67-mile pipeline on Thursday morning.
The shore Guard reported that while oil collection operations proceeded and underwater instruments probed the pipeline to identify the location of the rupture, visible oil was moving southwestward away from the Louisiana shore.
Luckily, no injuries or coastline impacts had been reported thus far and that the reason for the leak was being investigated.
The Coast Guard launched the National Response Team, a group of 15 federal agencies coordinating the response to oil pollution disasters, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency on Friday.