rain, rain and more rain in the forecast

Recent rain illustrates the continuing issues of refinery storm water run-off.


Aside from inadequate storm water capacity at the processing campus and issues of refinery parking lot rain run-off, homeowners report the continuing flood problems from Murphy-owned properties in the neighborhood. These properties were purchased by Murphy Oil through the former voluntary buyup program pursuant the crude oil spill case, Turner v Murphy.

Murphy Oil remediated some, but not all, properties in an arbitrarily designated area. Properties outside this area were not remediated. The remediation consisted of the removal of about six inches of top soil/oil and the addition of a layer of river-sand fill.

That river-sand fill was not always to grade and not always properly sloped to drain to the street. Coupled with lack of chainwalls, some of these Murphy-owned lots now drain onto adjacent homeowner’s properties, causing flooding. The inadequate fill and grading also causes some Murphy-owned lots to hold water and breed mosquitoes.

The Parish began enforcing local code for similar issues with LRA/LLT lots and has been requested to do the same with the Murphy-owned lots. We are entering the rainy, active tropical storm season and hope for timely improvements.