On Sunday, there was a huge oil leak reported in Louisiana’s Saint Bernard Parish.
It was reported by the local news outlet FOX 8 that the leak spilled approximately 20,000 gallons of oil into marshlands nearby and at least one waterway from an Entergy substation. It is also being speculated that this was a result of some criminal activity on site. The company said in a statement to FOX 8 that a day or two before the leak was found, two large transformers full of oil were stolen or removed from the station.
“We received a call of suspicious activity which was an odor which something appeared to be leaking from a tank, at the site, the Entergy site,’ St. Bernard Parish Sheriff James Pohlmann told local news outlet WGNO.
The smell was found to be stemming from the leaking oil, and the sheriff said it was too planned to be an accident.
“It appears that some type of plug was removed from a tank which caused the spillage out on the ground, not certain if that was criminal damage to property or theft,” Pohlman added.
“The released oil does not contain PCBs,” Brandon Scardigli, Entergy Louisiana’s communications director, told local news outlet WWLTV. “The resultant oil sheen appears to be consolidated, intact, and contained within a floating containment boom.”
It’s not the first-time criminal activity caused a massive oil leak in Louisiana. Only last month a Russian national was sentenced for dumping toxic oil off the coast.