Hilcorp employees say an oily sheen appeared in western Cook Inlet on Wednesday while they were investigating a separate sheen first reported late last month. Crews say the sheen appeared after the company restarted a water outfall line at its defunct Spark Platform in the inlet’s Trading Bay.
A joint command of agencies responding to the site said Hilcorp employees noticed the sheen around 11 a.m. near the platform’s southeast corner. Crews then closed the line, and an oil cleanup vessel on standby deployed recovery equipment. The joint command says the test was preapproved and carried out according to plan.
It’s been over two weeks since a pilot first reported seeing a mileslong oil sheen while flying over the area. The next day, the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, Hilcorp Alaska and the U.S. Coast Guard responded with an oil cleanup vessel. But crews did not see a sheen or signs of an oil spill in the days immediately following the initial report.
Hilcorp Alaska, which owns the defunct Spark Platform, got permission to reactivate some of its lines to test for possible leaks.
The joint command shifted from an active response to a monitoring status last month. It said it still hasn’t determined the cause of the initial sheen and is continuing that investigation.
