Resourceful post-hurricane reporting yields exclusives on Louisiana oil spills

By Michael Biesecker

As Hurricane Ida slammed into Louisiana — launching strong AP coverage that would stretch from the Gulf Coast to the Northeast — Washington-based investigative reporter Michael Biesecker began contacting federal and state officials asking about damage to petrochemical facilities. In the chaos following the storm, environmental regulators kept telling him they had no confirmed reports of oil or chemical spills along the coast.

Biesecker has covered more than a dozen hurricanes, and knew from experience that aircraft from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration would be doing overflights of the hardest-hit areas for an aerial survey as soon as the clouds cleared.

AP 21244785553630 ss — A miles-long black slick floats in the Gulf of Mexico near a large rig marked with the name Enterprise Offshore Drilling in an Aug. 31, 2021 photo released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and reviewed by the AP. AP reported that divers traced the leak to a break in a 1-foot diameter undersea pipeline. – NOAA via AP

AP 21251125591488 ss — Vessels operate amid oil slicks in the Gulf of Mexico at East Timbalier Island National Wildlife Refuge in Louisiana, in a Sept. 4, 2021 satellite image provided by Maxar Technologies. – ©2021 Maxar Technologies via AP

AP 21251125840785 ss — Vessels operate amid an oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico south of Port Fourchon, La., in a Sept. 4, 2021 satellite image provided by Maxar Technologies. – ©2021 Maxar Technologies via AP

When the first batch of that imagery was posted to a NOAA website late Tuesday, he began scrolling through the thousands of composite photos, looking for flooded facilities and the tell-tale rainbow sheen that indicates leaking contamination. He quickly found a worrying miles-long oil slick spreading in the Gulf of Mexico about 2 miles off Port Fourchon, the region’s main oil and gas port. He found more sheen in the water coming from a massive oil refinery along the Mississippi River.

Biesecker took screen grabs of the NOAA photos and sent them to the Environmental Protection Agency and Louisiana environmental agencies, who said they were still unaware of any spills. He also sent the images to refinery owner Phillips 66, who after days of telling Biesecker they had no problems, were forced to confirm a “sheen of unknown origin” at their flooded facility.

Biesecker’s persistence led to a series of exclusive news breaks garnering 150,000 pageviews on AP platforms. On Wednesday, he broke the news of the two oil spills with photos of the offshore slick. On Thursday, he broke news of the federal response to the spills following AP’s report. Saturday’s story detailed the effort to clean up the offshore spill. And on Monday, Biesecker was first to report that divers at the scene had identified a broken 1-foot diameter undersea pipeline as the apparent source of the offshore slick.

Divers at the site of an ongoing oil spill off the Louisiana coast have identified the source as one-foot diameter pipeline sheared in half by Hurricane Ida. Two 95-foot response vessels are attempting to contain and recover oil from the water’s surface. https://t.co/zVnW4U96Zk

— The Associated Press (@AP) September 5, 2021

This series adds to a string of wins for Biesecker as he’s carved out a niche of breaking news about environmental disasters resulting from tropical storms and hurricanes.

For smart reporting that put AP ahead of the competition — and even ahead of the government and energy companies themselves — on an important environmental story in the wake of Ida, Biesecker is AP’s Best of the Week — First Winner.