ES&H opens oil spill response in Texas

The Houma oil spill clean-up firm ES&H has opened an oil spill response office in Houston near the Houston Ship Channel.

The channel is a 50-mile-long waterway connecting Houston to the Gulf of Mexico and is heavily-used by the petrochemical industry.

The new office is equipped with an oil spill response vessel, response trailer, containment boom, skimming units and other response equipment.

“There’s always been a need for our presence there,” said ES&H marketing coordinator Keli Bonvillain. “After a profitable year, we were able to expand to Texas. It’s an expansion of our Oil Spill Response Organization.”

“The additional Oil Spill Response Organization office in Houston allows us to respond to an emergency,” she said. “It puts us close to customers when they have a spill.”

The new office already responded to one environmental incident in east Texas.

Peter Plaisance, who has been employed by ES&H since the company’s founding in 1994, will manage the new Houston office. Plaisance managed the company’s Oil Spill Response Organization headquarters in Houma for six years.

ES&H opened a consulting office in Houston three years ago that will remain open, according to the spokeswoman.

The company cleans up well blowouts, pipeline ruptures, train derailments and other industrial accidents.

Bonvillain said ES&H in Houma will not reduce its operations because of the company’s expansion to Texas.