Workers use hard boom to corral crude oil while they try to pump it out of the water adjacent to Chenier Ronquille, a barrier island at the southern end of Barataria Bay, in 2016.
A worker attempts to remove oil from a bird recovered by Chenier Ronquille, September 10, 2016. A natural resource damage assessment involving the pipeline break causing the spill is under way. (U.S. Coast Guard)
Coast Guard Petty Officer 3rd Class Lyndsey Slabe surveys the cleanup efforts on Chenier Ronquille, Sept. 10, 2016. A unified command consisting of the Coast Guard, Louisiana Oil Spill Coordinator’s Office, and ECM Maritime Services was established on Sept. 6, 2016 to respond to oil leaking from a broken pipe. (U.S. Coast Guard)
Employees of the Office of Wildlife and the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, Lucas Montouchet (left) and Mel Landry (right), walk along the 1.8-mile long Chenier Ronquille Island recently restored and fashioned with a sand fence to prevent flooding. (Photo by Frankie Prijatel, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)
Chenier Ronquille Island is a barrier island in Plaquemines Parish.
Workers use hard boom to corral crude oil while they try to pump it out of the water adjacent to Chenier Ronquille, a barrier island at the southern end of Barataria Bay, in 2016.
A heavy equipment operator from Harvey was sentenced by a federal judge to two years probation and fined $2,500 for rupturing an oil pipeline while working to restore a Louisiana island harmed by a much larger oil spill, the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
James Tassin, 52, plead guilty last year to misdemeanor charges in exchange for cooperation in a larger case against Great Lakes Dredge and Dock, the Houston-based company that the government hired to restore Chenier Ronquille, a sandy, uninhabited island east of Grand Isle.
Tassin was sentenced on Sept. 8 by District Judge Susie Morgan.
Chenier Ronquille Island is a barrier island in Plaquemines Parish.
On Sept. 5, 2016, Tassin was a subcontractor operating an excavator marsh buggy for Great Lakes when it struck an underground pipeline jointly owned by Harvest Pipeline Co. and Arrowhead Gulf Coast Pipeline, releasing an estimated 5,250 gallons of oil into Bay Long on the south edge of Barataria Bay.
According to court documents, Tassin reported the spill to supervisors but they directed him to cover up evidence that he had been deepening an unauthorized access channel. Tassin was also instructed to keep quiet about the incident, his lawyer said.
The U.S. Coast Guard said at the time that more than 20 boats, eight skimmers and 10,000 feet of boom were deployed to contain the spill. At least 200 birds were oiled before a large share of the oil was recovered, Coast Guard officials said.
A worker attempts to remove oil from a bird recovered by Chenier Ronquille, September 10, 2016. A natural resource damage assessment involving the pipeline break causing the spill is under way. (U.S. Coast Guard)
In a separate case, Great Lakes plead guilty to criminal charges and agreed to pay a fine of $1 million. Great Lakes also agreed to civil payments of almost $3.2 million to the pipeline companies. Tassin’s employer, Shallow Water Equipment Co., of Morgan City, also agreed in the same civil case to pay almost $1.7 million, for a total payment to the pipeline companies of more than $4.8 million.
The $36 million restoration of Chenier Ronquille was partly funded with money that BP spent on damages for its Deepwater Horizon disaster. The island’s west side was heavily oiled during the disaster.
A 2013 environmental assessment prepared for the restoration project noted the island's value to a variety of migratory bird species and warned of oil and natural gas infrastructure on and around the work site.
Coast Guard Petty Officer 3rd Class Lyndsey Slabe surveys the cleanup efforts on Chenier Ronquille, Sept. 10, 2016. A unified command consisting of the Coast Guard, Louisiana Oil Spill Coordinator’s Office, and ECM Maritime Services was established on Sept. 6, 2016 to respond to oil leaking from a broken pipe. (U.S. Coast Guard)
Chenier Ronquille’s restoration is part of a much larger federal and state effort to restore Louisiana’s fast-eroding barrier islands. The islands provide critical bird-nesting habitat and serve as the coast’s first line of defense against hurricanes.
But thousands of miles of buried and underwater pipelines lie in tangles across the coast, many of them abandoned or poorly mapped. Pipelines are a challenge for the state Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, which is carrying out a 50-year, $50 billion plan to restore Louisiana’s coastal marshes and islands.
In 2020, the agency abandoned plans to rebuild East Timbalier Island after determining that the large number of pipelines, wells and other oil and gas infrastructure there had severely damaged the island and made it too expensive and dangerous to restore.
Employees of the Office of Wildlife and the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, Lucas Montouchet (left) and Mel Landry (right), walk along the 1.8-mile long Chenier Ronquille Island recently restored and fashioned with a sand fence to prevent flooding. (Photo by Frankie Prijatel, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)
Great Lakes has been involved in several restoration projects on Louisiana’s coast. The company frequently uses dredge vessels to dig up offshore sand and pile it on islands and coastal headlands.
The company is one of a handful permitted to do large-scale dredge work in U.S. waters. A scarcity of dredges has delayed several restoration projects planned in coastal states, according to a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers assessment.
Army Corps and CPRA officials said existing contracts with Great Lakes worth millions of dollars for restoration projects and dredging the Mississippi River and numerous harbors would not be affected unless a debarment order was issued.
“It’s a lot like buying shoes. You can buy cheap shoes, but they’re not going to last as long as the more expensive and higher quality ones."
Near the coast, there's not enough sediment to rebuild marshes; upriver, they can't get rid of it
Called the Zandmotor, or Sand Motor in English, the project in The Netherlands is the world’s largest experiment in coastal storm and flood defense.
This work is supported with a grant funded by the Walton Family Foundation and administered by the Society of Environmental Journalists.
Tristan Baurick: tbaurick@theadvocate.com; on Twitter: @tristanbaurick.
“It’s hard not to be disgusted when you see that,” said Chris Macaluso, marine fisheries director for the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership.
Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
News Tips: newstips@theadvocate.com
Other questions: subscriberservices@theadvocate.com