The U.S. Coast Guard on Monday prepared a plan to plug a natural gas leak in southern Lafourche Parish after deploying thousands of feet of boom to contain it over the last few days.

The gas release first reported Friday morning remains uncontrolled, and the federal agency is working alongside state and local authorities to contain the pollution and plug the wellhead. A sheen is visible on the water nearby, but the Coast Guard says that it “disperses and evaporates quickly, and there are no indications of significant environmental impact.” 

The agency said the gas release currently poses no risk to Golden Meadow. The wellhead is about three and a half miles southeast of the town.

“They have vessels currently monitoring the air as well as the water,” said Coast Guard Lt. Joshua Turner. The agency is staging a plan to plug the gas release now, and it hopes to be ready to implement it by Wednesday. 

The agency said it had deployed about 5,100 feet of hard boom — a hard barrier meant to keep oil contained in a particular area — as well as 106 bales of absorbent boom, which help to absorb the gas out of the water. 

The well is owned and operated by Castex Energy, a Houston-based company that owns about 130 oil and gas wells across Louisiana, according to records from the state’s Department of Conservation and Energy. 

Only 11 of the company’s wells are active, state records show. The remaining wells are largely permanently plugged, but six are temporarily shuttered and may produce oil again. 

The leaking well was first drilled on Nov. 19, 2012, and has been brought in and out of active production nine times since then, records show.

Matt Driscoll, a public information officer for Castex, declined to comment and referred further questions to the U.S. Coast Guard. 

Rep. Joe Orgeron, R-Golden Meadow, said he stopped by the site of the leak over the weekend after he received inquiries from constituents. 

“I’m getting questions from people from out of town who have camps back there,” he said. They can’t access their property, he said, because the canals they use to get to their camps are blocked off with containment booms.

“I spoke to some of the cleanup people,” Orgeron said. “They told me that, one, the well had not been contained and, two, that it was messier than one might imagine.”

Orgeron stressed that he had not yet spoken to anyone at Castex, nor had he been briefed by the Coast Guard.