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http://wire.ap.org/?FRONTID=NATIONAL&STORYID=APIS7250A0G0

JANUARY 22, 14:29 EST Oil Spill Spotted in Gulf of Mexico

By ALAN CLENDENNING Associated Press Writer

NEW ORLEANS (AP)  A crude oil slick floated on the Gulf of Mexico on Saturday after an underwater pipeline was ruptured by an 8-ton anchor dropped accidentally from a drilling rig.

The slick was floating slowly westward, about 115 miles south of New Orleans and 75 miles south of the closest land, and did not pose an immediate threat to coastal areas, Coast Guard spokesman Jason Neubauer said.

No dead birds or fish had been spotted.

Airplanes were used to spread a chemical to disperse the oil, and five oil recovery boats were sent to the area, Neubauer said.

About 77,000 gallons of oil poured into the water on Friday, creating a slick two miles long and two miles wide. On Saturday, the slick was roughly the same width but had stretched to seven miles long, Neubauer said.

The drill rig was being towed to a new location Friday when the anchor dropped into water 440 feet deep and snagged the pipeline, dragging it and causing several breaks, Neubauer said.

The pipeline, owned by Equilon Pipeline Co. of New Orleans, was shut down after monitoring systems detected a pressure drop, said Mary Dokianos, a spokesman for Shell, which is a partial owner of Equilon.

The owner of the drill rig, Transocean Sedco Forex Inc. of Houston, said the accident was caused by a malfunction in the rig's anchor winch. No one was hurt.

-- Dee (T1Colt556@aol.com), January 22, 2000

Answers

Good news, though: The monitoring systems apparently worked...

-- I'm Here, I'm There (I'm Everywhere@so.beware), January 22, 2000.

It also confirms earlier questions about whether or not automatic pressure drop monitoring systems are in use in the pipelines. Leading to the question ... Why are so many apparantly failing lately?

-- andthetruthsh@llsetthemfr.ee (tw9@altavista.com), January 23, 2000.