Louisiana:
Oil and gas leaked from a damaged well on a waterway in Louisiana in the United States on Tuesday, north of a bay where officials have been fighting the spill from the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
The US Coast Guard said the tow boat Pere Ana C struck the wellhead near Mud Lake early on Tuesday.
The boat was moved to LaRose after the incident and no injuries were reported.
The Coast Guard didn't know who owned the well or how much oil had leaked.
However they said a strip of oil 50 yards wide and a mile long was spotted on the water near the well.
Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal said the well was spewing a brownish-orange mixture of oil, gas, and mud about 100 feet up into the air, but it was unclear what the flow rate was.
"This is very different than the deep water incident that happened 5,000 feet below the surface," said Jindal after returning from a flyover of the site.
"This wellhead is one and a half feet above water," he said.
Rear Admiral Mary Landry of the Coast Guard said that they were fortunate to have "the resources in place from Deepwater Horizon response, and we were able to access those resources quickly."
Mud Lake is part of a network of bayous and lakes north of Barataria Bay, an ecologically sensitive coastal estuary where authorities have been fighting waves of oil from the Deepwater Horizon accident.
The US Coast Guard said the tow boat Pere Ana C struck the wellhead near Mud Lake early on Tuesday.
The boat was moved to LaRose after the incident and no injuries were reported.
The Coast Guard didn't know who owned the well or how much oil had leaked.
However they said a strip of oil 50 yards wide and a mile long was spotted on the water near the well.
Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal said the well was spewing a brownish-orange mixture of oil, gas, and mud about 100 feet up into the air, but it was unclear what the flow rate was.
"This is very different than the deep water incident that happened 5,000 feet below the surface," said Jindal after returning from a flyover of the site.
"This wellhead is one and a half feet above water," he said.
Rear Admiral Mary Landry of the Coast Guard said that they were fortunate to have "the resources in place from Deepwater Horizon response, and we were able to access those resources quickly."
Mud Lake is part of a network of bayous and lakes north of Barataria Bay, an ecologically sensitive coastal estuary where authorities have been fighting waves of oil from the Deepwater Horizon accident.
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