The State Department, still with “egg on its face” from its statement that Keystone XL would have little impact on climate change, sunk a little lower today as the most respected elders, and chiefs of 10 sovereign nations turned their backs on State Department representatives and walked out during a meeting. The meeting, which was a failed attempt at a “nation to nation” tribal consultation concerning the Northen leg of the Keystone XL Pipeline neglected to address any legitimate concerns being raised by First Nations Leaders (or leading scientific experts for that matter).
Tribal nations added probably the most critical danger of the pipeline which is to the water. Their statement is below:
On this historic day of May 16, 2013, ten sovereign Indigenous nations maintain that the proposed TransCanada/Keystone XL pipeline does not serve the national interest and in fact would be detrimental not only to the collected sovereigns but all future generations on planet earth. This morning the following sovereigns informed the Department of State Tribal Consultation effort at the Hilton Garden Inn in Rapid City, SD, that the gathering was not recognized as a valid consultation on a “nation to nation” level:
Southern Ponca Pawnee Nation Nez Perce Nation
And the following Oceti Sakowin (Seven Council Fires People):
Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate Ihanktonwan Dakota (Yankton Sioux) Rosebud Sioux Tribe Oglala Sioux Tribe Standing Rock Tribe Lower Brule Sioux Tribe Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe Crow Creek Sioux Tribe
The Great Plains Tribal Chairmans Association supports this position, which is in solidarity with elected leaders, Treaty Councils and the grassroots community, and is guided by spiritual leaders. On Saturday, May 18, the Sacred Pipe Bundle of the Oceti Sakowin will be brought out to pray with the people to stop the KXL pipeline, and other tribal nation prayer circles will gather to do the same.
Pursuant to Executive Order 13175, the above sovereigns directed the DOS to invite President Obama to engage in “true Nation to Nation” consultation with them at the nearest date, at a designated location to be communicated by each of the above sovereigns. After delivering that message, the large contingent of tribal people walked out of the DOS meeting and asked the other tribal people present to support this effort and to leave the meeting. Eventually all remaining tribal representatives and Tribal Historic Preservation Officers left the meeting at the direct urging of the grassroots organization Owe Aku. Owe Aku, Moccasins on the Ground, and Protect the Sacred are preparing communities to resist the Keystone XL pipeline through Keystone Blockade Training.
“Tourists and Rome residents were expecting navigation for the year to resume at Easter. But we didn’t open out of respect for them,” said Mauro Pica Villa from “Rome Boats”, the company in charge of all cruises on the river.
“We’re ashamed of the Tiber’s state of abandonment,” he told AFP on Thursday.
The river’s tall stone embankments have become grey with pollution, the river banks are strewn with rubbish and homeless people live under the bridges.
“The last time the river was cleaned up was in 2008! Everyone can see it since trees along the Tiber are covered in plastic bags and other rubbish every time the river overflows,” which happens several times in a year, he said.
A song I wrote when I visited the site after 9/11; always thought a little heavy, but it is time to get it out there. All photos taken from the web, if there is any infringement, please contact me, I will include credits. Included on my CD “Renegade of the Light Brigade” during the remix and urging of the late, great Steve Burgh.
Video of grieving pink dolphin mother underscores plight of disappearing species
Sunday, 05 May, 2013, 2:32pm
Simon Parry and Hazel Knowles
The many economical and ecological benefits to using human excrement and urine as fertiliser are not to be sniffed at. Fred Pearce gets to grips with a sorely underused resource.
10:01PM
A pink dolphin is seen in Hong Kong waters.
An hour into their journey from Tung Chung pier, the 20 members of the boat party finally got what they had been waiting for – a close encounter with the remaining pink dolphins who still make their home in Hong Kong waters.
But as the boat edged closer to the dolphins in the Lung Kwu Chau Marine Park and the eager tourists reached for their cameras, their excitement quickly turned to shock and distress.
“There were about four or five dolphins in the water and it seemed at first as if they were trying to get hold of something and support it,” said Ho Tak-ching, 34, a guide with Hong Kong Dolphinwatch. “It really wasn’t normal behaviour.”
The dolphins were trying to help a mother support the body of her dead calf and stop it slipping below the water’s surface.
“I started to film and it was then that I noticed the dead baby calf. From its size and colour, I guessed it was a newborn. It was so depressing and so very sad. While I was taking the video I couldn’t stop myself crying.
“There was a group of four or five dolphins taking turns with the mother to try to keep the baby on the surface of the water. We watched it for about 30 minutes.
It was so depressing and so very sad. While I was taking the video I couldn’t stop myself crying
“At first, I didn’t want to mention it to the passengers. But then some of them noticed the dead baby. They asked me, ‘How has this happened?’ They seemed very upset. They asked if there was something we could do to help, but I said there was nothing we could do.”
Grieving and unable to accept their calves’ deaths, the mother dolphins will spend up to two weeks trying to keep them on the surface of the water, exhausting themselves and going without food as other dolphins rally to help them.
These displays of epimeletic, or care-giving, behaviour demonstrate the intelligence and compassion of dolphins.
Disturbingly, they have also become an increasingly common sight in Hong Kong waters, where dolphin numbers are already in rapid decline.
The sad scene a week ago – captured on video and widely shared on Facebook – was the third separate incident of a dead calf being supported by its mother and other dolphins in Hong Kong waters last month alone.
In a scenario that paints a bleak picture for the future of the Hong Kong population, the calves are believed to have been killed by polluted water ingested by the mothers and then passed on to their offspring in their milk.
Video: Hong Kong Dolphinwatch
Despite being a protected species and a symbol of Hong Kong, figures to be released next month are expected to reveal a further sharp decline in the number of Indo-pacific humpback dolphins – also known as Chinese white dolphins or pink dolphins because of the change in their skin colour as they grow older.
Their abundance – or the number of them in Hong Kong waters at any given time – fell from 158 in 2003 to 78 in 2011.
Figures for last year are being finalised but will show a further “significant” decline, according to the experts compiling the data.
The death of the calves was almost certainly caused by pollutants in the seawater around Hong Kong, said Dolphinwatch spokeswoman Janet Walker.
“The toxins from pollutants accumulate in body fat because the dolphins can’t metabolise it and I am told dolphin milk is 40 per cent fat,” she said.
“The milk is very rich and fatty so it doesn’t disperse in the water when the mother squirts it out.
“That means all the toxins which are collected in the fat cells over 10 or 11 years of the mother living in polluted water goes straight to the first born.”
Walker described the death of three newborn dolphins in one month as “horrendous”.
She said: “There are not many things that kill babies that little. They are not as likely to get tangled in nets as they used to and I wouldn’t think the deaths were cause by a vessel collision because they stick really close to their mothers. So we think it’s toxins in the mother’s milk.
“Ideally, these dolphins should live 30 to 40 years. But here, if they get into their 20s, they are doing well. Half the dead ones every year are juveniles and babies.
“It is so frustrating. We have known about the problems facing dolphins for a long time, but no one is doing anything.
“The government claims to be doing something but then it is building this bridge to Macau and the third runway at the airport. That is an awful lot of construction in the dolphins’ habitat.”
Samuel Hung Ka-yiu, chairman of the Hong Kong Dolphin Conservation Society, said he hoped the pitiful video would help people wake up to the reality that Hong Kong is on its way to losing for good the dolphin population first recorded in its waters in the 1600s.
“It is heartbreaking to watch,” he said. “You can feel for the mother. Why is she not giving up on the dolphin? It’s because she cannot accept that it has died. And why did it die? It is not the fault of the mother. It is our fault. We are causing this.
“The dolphin’s mother has to hold the baby the entire time otherwise it will sink to the bottom and she will do this for a week or two weeks, not eating at all. She is grieving.
“And what is causing that grief? It is because of us and everything we have done. I really hope people reflect on that.”
Hung, whose group has monitored and campaigned for the conservation of Hong Kong’s dolphin population since the 1990s, said: “I ‘ve never been so pessimistic about the future of our dolphins as I am now.
“I always tried to think that we could turn things around. We are able to maybe sustain the population with good conservation measures and good monitoring. But I think the pace of development pressure and the unwillingness to deal with threats like vessel traffic and the reluctance to deal with anything that hinders economic development is just too huge.”
In previous years, Hung said, his dolphin group had to deal with two or three threats at a time to dolphin habitat.
“Now we are dealing with seven or eight projects at a time,” he said. “It is crazy. There are so many battles to fight.
This will happen in Arkansas and Missouri as well. It has already happened in The Gulf Coast States.How long will we allow to be sold out for a few dollars.
Can anyone put a price on human life ?
Can money bring bac the ecosystem?
Can the few jobs they provide bring back those who have been compromised for the rest of their lives?
Is this worth the few jobs promised to ship this poison??
Please mirror and share with every British Columbian, Canadian, and world citizen who wants to protect the BC coast, Great Bear Rainforest, and our way of life. Enbridge Inc, with their horrible spill record, wants to build a pipeline thru the heart of BC and run tankers up and down our rocky coasts. Whats most amazing, is what we get in return for this HUGE gamble, watch to see…
More than 1000 birds now dead as result of coastal chemical spill in UK
Dead guillemot covered in the glue like substance, photo by Darryl Thorpe/Cornwall Wildlife Trust
Unprecedented number of deads birds washing ashore
April 2013. A week after the first reports of birds covered in a sticky glue like substance being washed up on southwest beaches, wildlife charities have confirmed that the number of dead has passed 1000. This is in addition to the 200+ birds in the care of RSPCA and South Devon Seabird Trust.
Second recent incident
The substance has been identified as polyisobutene (PIB) by researchers at Plymouth University. It is the second time in just three months that PIB has killed hundreds of seabirds in the South West.
In this latest incident birds have been found in a wide area from Dodman Point, Cornwall to the Teign Estuary, Devon but the worst hit areas have been beaches along Whitsand Bay in south east Cornwall where locals have been counting hundreds of birds every day.
Alison Fogg, zoologist and environment campaigner who lives by the sea near Lanteglos in Cornwall has been close to the unfolding disaster; “It is hard to sum up so many different emotions, from the last few days, in a few words . Seeing more than 157 dead birds on Lansallos beach, followed by hundreds more at Lantic Bay, was quite devastating. Lansallos is a small sheltered beach on the South Coast of Cornwall. A haven for nature and totally unspoilt, this beach is popular with holiday makers, walkers and locals for swimming and relaxation.
“The scale of destruction to wildlife, in the beginning of the bird breeding season and at the start of the tourist season is quite difficult to comprehend.”
Bin bags of dead birds collected from one beach, photo by Darryl Thorpe. What is PIB? Polyisobutene (PIB), also known as polyisobutylene or butyl rubber, is a non-toxic and non- aggressive substance, used for example to manufacture chewing gum, adhesive tape and sealants. It is also very sticky – PIB is what makes cling-film stick to whatever it touches. In shipping, it is often used as a thickening agent for industrial lubricant oils. PIB was first developed in the 1940s as a synthetic alternative to natural rubber which was in short supply due to conflicts in rubber-producing regions. As a substance, it is generally colourless or light yellow, odourless, tasteless and cannot easily be identified. One of its special properties is that it is the only form of rubber that is completely impermeable to gas as well as water. PIB, along with other non-petroleum products, is transported around the world on a regular and increasing basis. The global consumption of PIB was over 850,000 tonnes in 2011, with the USA as the leading producer, but Belgium and France together produce almost a fifth of the PIB market. The UK is also a major importer. As a consequence, there is considerable transport of PIB around the UK and Western Europe. Global consumption is forecast to increase by around 40% by 2017 to 1.2 million tonnes per year. What are the impacts of PIB on seabirds and marine wildlife? PIB usually enters the water through ships ‘flushing’, or washing, their tanks and clearing ballast water. PIB is a hydrophobic substance though, so on contact with water it coalesces into a waxy, glue-like formation, generally floating at or just underneath the surface. As such it is extremely hazardous to a range of seabird species, which dive to find food. These birds become covered in the substance, which sticks their wings to their bodies and prevents them from feeding, causing immobilisation, hypothermia, starvation and eventually death. There is also a risk of ingestion of bits of PIB in its waxy form.
Unknown source
It is not known whether the substance got into the sea as a spill from a ship or as part of legal and routine tank washing operations.
We cannot go on treating our precious marine environment as a dustbin
Tony Whitehead from RSPB said; “The devastation this substance has caused has been appalling. To see the images of beaches strewn with bodies is a sobering reminder that we just cannot go on treating our precious marine environment as a dustbin.
“If this was an illegal spill, we need to support the Maritime and Coastguard Agency in tracking down the ship responsible. Although this will be difficult, surely it’s not impossible.
Legal?
“If this was the result of legal tank washing operations, we need to urge the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) to tighten up the rules and make it illegal to wash this stuff into the sea. It’s a noxious substance and we don’t want it in our marine environment.”
Last month, 22 families were displaced after a portion of Exxon/Mobil’s Pegasus pipeline busted leaving 10,000 barrels of crude oil in the streets of a Arkansas community. On Wednesday, the oil giant confirmed it had another mess on its hands after a portion of the same pipeline erupted in Ripley County, Missouri. RT’s Meghan Lopez has the details.
…
02.05.2013
Environment Pollution
USA
State of Missouri, [Pegasus pipeline, Ripley County]
While very much smaller than the recent Mayflower, Arkansas spill, this new rupture causes even more concern over the aging Pegasus pipeline. Questions about the severity of the recent March 29 oil spill in Mayflower, Arkansas are still unanswered. And now there is yet another rupture from the aging pipeline in Ripley County, Missouri, 200 miles north of Mayflower.While Mayflower residents found 10,000 barrels of oil in their back yards, this smaller rupture only spilled an estimated one barrel of crude. But even so, this is worrying. According to Reuters, a resident living just outside the town of Doniphan spotted a patch of oil and dead vegetation in their yard and notified ExxonMobil right away. Luckily with the spill being so much smaller, an Exxon spokeswoman has announced that the cleanup operation is “close to completion.”
A spokeswoman for the Missouri Department of Natural Resources said on Wednesday, “The release occurred from the installation of a guide wire for a power line pipe that was installed approximately 30 years ago.” “The guide wire was located almost directly on top of the pipeline and has worn down over the years,” she added. Reuters reportedly tried to contact the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), who is ultimately responsible for approving the Pegasus pipeline’s restart. Apparently the agency has not immediately responded. A report was released by the PHMSA which advised that of the approximately 5,000 barrels of crude oil involved in the pipeline breach, less than half had been cleaned up by ExxonMobil. The report also mentioned contamination of surface water, accounting for 2,000 barrels of oil located in ditches and a cove south of nearby Lake Conway. Although the latest report does not appear to indicate that oil has reached the larger body of Lake Conway, an independent study conducted by Opflex Solutions indicates otherwise. See their video above.
I have gone through the Oil Sands Fact Check site and honestly all I can find is boasting as to the boon in the US economy, jobs and the fact that activists are using the pipeline and tar sands oil as a scapegoat. Not once in all the supposed facts they have there do they address the real concerns, simply twisting the facts to their advantage. Painting themselves as responsible entities. Never once addressing that this substance is way more dangerous than oil to the environment and the water, especially. The tap dance over the fact by stating that tar sands oil has been transported into the US for decades.
What they fail to miss is this: Instead of reporting the factual analysis of the toxic substances that this tar sand emits they skirt over the fact claiming their emissions testing results. Now please correct me if I am wrong , but the major concern of environmentalists and activist is not the emissions once it is in the car. In fact the concern is of the damage the unrefined substance will do to the environment and the water shed if a spill were to take place. As we can see in Arkansas the substance is so toxic that the residents are already suffering from it’s effects .
They call themselves responsible entities, so then my question is this :
what is Exxon doing to make this right?
Exxon has stated that the water quality was within safe limits.
So what exactly does that mean ?
Are we to accept the status quo with regards to safety limits just as we are to accept that GMO’s are good for us even though there are more and more opponents coming out stating that it is in fact detrimental to human health?
What about the air quality? Or does that not matter?
Children are getting sick. People are becoming ill due to the toxic conditions.
Are we to believe this is acceptable ?
Or will this also be kept from the people and the sick treated like insignificant data as the people of the gulf were?
Good health once it has been compromised cannot be replaced.
Will your tar sands oil paycheck take care of it?
There is no amount of compensation that will replace good health. Nor erase catastrophic illness.
Or does it not matter because it isn’t your family?
I am sorry to break it to you , but unless you have a crystal ball that tells you otherwise . It could very well be you and your family that suffers next! Do not delude yourself by detaching from the reality of things entertaining the belief that it won’t happen to you . I am sure the people of Mayflower , Arkansas never imagined they would now be mired in this poison. Their children getting sick and their homes surrounded, helpless waiting for some heartless oil company to decide whether the clean up is worth the expense. Not the lives of the people affected by their poison, but their bottomline.
Don’t kid yourself!
With the lack of responsibility and lack of corrective action taken by oil companies in Africa. With leaking pipelines and toxic sludge where lakes had once been. Dead soil where crops were once grown.
How can anyone in their right mind take the word of these companies as to their integrity and responsibility?
We have seen what BP did in the Gulf Of Mexico.
Do you truly consider what was done in the gulf an adequate job of cleaning up the mess made by their incompetence and lust for profits?
The sea life dying as a result and scientists complaining that they have been legally gagged from making their findings available to the public.
Restrained by whom?
The oil companies?
No restrained by the government that is supposed to be looking out for our benefit. Instead they are protecting the Oil Companies interests.
Is this the kind of safety measure you want?
The reins handed over to a company who’s haste for fattening up their bottom line poisons our earth , our air and our water so that they can police themselves?
How many journalists were kept away from the Gulf to keep them from reporting what they saw there?
How many reporters were kept from Mayflower, Arkansas for the same reason?
Everyone is crowing about the jobs the tar sands oil will bring to the US.
Are you truly understanding what you are asking for?
Do you even understand that Mayflower Arkansas could be anywhere in the heartland?
Do you realize what would happen if that pipeline leaked into the water shed.?
It would not be someone else’s problem , it would be everyone’s problem . You are looking for jobs, yes we understand. We all live here in the States and we are all going through the same hard times. We all need to work and we all need to pay our bills.
Where do we draw the line at what is admissible and what is over the not?
There is only one Earth and when she is completely trashed where will you go ?
Will your job with tars sands oil help you bring her back ?
Will you be able to remove the horrible toxins deposited by your tars sands oil from the earth,the rivers, the water?
Are you not paying attention to what is happening around you?
I want you to understand one very important thing. The responsibility for the destruction of our environment is not just on the oil companies. It is on everyone of you who don’t give it a second thought. On everyone of you that takes clean air ,and water for granted. On everyone of you that places a job over the well being of your children and your fellow American’s children. This is not a game this is a very hazardous situation that has grave consequences and until all of you realize that , we are lost.
Money has become the denominating factor in our lives.
What happened to principal , responsibility and honor.
What happened to doing what is right ?
Where is the concern for our children’s well being?
I see my fellow citizens on a collision course with destruction, hell bent on ignoring the warning signs. Their eyes on the prize of money and material things.
One wonders how much that money and those materials possessions will help when you can no longer give your child a cup of clean , safe water to drink?
On March 29, an oil pipeline running through Mayflower, Arkansas experienced a leak that resulted in the evacuation of 22 homes and immediate clean up efforts from the pipeline’s operator, ExxonMobil. According to reports, the Pegasus line was carrying Wabasca Heavy crude oil – a blend of crude produced in the Athabasca oil sands region in Alberta.
Of course, in the minds of oil sands opponents, all pipelines are made alike and are uniformly threatened by oil sands crudes. In fact, following the news of the incident, Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) stated:
“This latest pipeline incident is a troubling reminder that oil companies still have not proven that they can safely transport Canadian tar sands oil across the United States without creating risks to our citizens and our environment.”
We have the top five reasons why that’s not the case.
1) Oil sands crudes have been transported safely in the U.S. for more than 40 years. Accident reports from the Pipeline & Hazardous Material Safety Administration (PHMSA) from 2002 through mid-2012 show zero internal corrosion-related releases from pipelines carrying diluted bitumen.
2) Oil sands crudes are not more corrosive than other crude oils. In a 2011 report, Canadian research group Alberta Innovates found that acid and sulfur compounds found in oil sands crudes “are too stable to be corrosive and some may even decrease corrosion.” Recent testing and studies by ASTM International and Penspen support this conclusion.
3) Oil sands crudes are transported at comparable pipeline pressures as other heavy crude oils. All U.S. pipelines must operate under Maximum Operating Pressure limitations administered by PHMSA. In other words, pipelines are constructed to specifications that ensure they can handle the intended operating pressure and the type of liquid that flows through them.
4) Oil sands crudes are not heated for transportation in pipelines above the temperature of other crude oils. The range of temperatures for all crude oils from Canada is 40-135 degrees Fahrenheit. The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Code for Pipeline Transportation Systems forLiquid Hydrocarbons and Other Liquids does not consider pipeline temperatures to be elevated unless they exceed 150 degrees Fahrenheit.
5) Keystone XL would “have a degree of safety over any other.” As mentioned in point #3, pipelines must meet certain specifications before transporting any type of crude, no matter if it’s heavy or light. Keystone XL, which will also carry heavy oil from Alberta, is going above and beyond those requirements by adopting 57 extra safety measures, leading the State Department to declare that the project would “have a degree of safety over any other.”
LITTLE ROCK, Ark., April 30 (UPI) — There’s been a “toxic soup” hanging over residents in Mayflower, Ark., as a result of an Exxon Mobil oil pipeline accident, a citizen’s group said.
Exxon said about 5,000 barrels of oil was released last month from a 22-foot rupture on its Pegasus pipeline in Mayflower. The pipeline, built in the 1940s, was carrying a diluted form of Canadian crude oil, dubbed oil sands, at the time of the spill.
Air samples taken March 30, the day after the incident, indicated high levels of compounds considered harmful to human health. The samples were conducted by a student activist trained by the Faulkner County (Ark.) Citizens Advisory Group and Global Community Monitor.
“Total toxic hydrocarbons were detected at more than 88,000 parts per billion in the ambient air and present a complex airborne mixture or soup of toxic chemicals that residents may have been exposed to from the Mayflower tar sands bitumen spill,” Neil Carman, a representative from the Texas chapter of the Sierra Club, said in a statement.
Exxon admitted to finding levels of benzene and other harmful chemicals in early samples taken at Mayflower. It said air and water quality was within safe limits in the weeks following the spill, however.
The report, published by the activist groups, said residents are showing signs of exposure to chemicals ranging from benzene, a carcinogen, to toluene, a central nervous system depressant, more than four weeks after the spill.
Roughly four weeks after the spill took place, many basic details are still unknown to the public, according to recent reporting by InsideClimate News. Questions include what exactly caused the spill, how big was the spill exactly, and how long did it take for emergency responders to react to the spill, to name a few.
But one thing is certain according to the new study: For the residents of Mayflower, quality of life has been changed forever.
All of these chemicals are hazardous air pollutants (HAPs), “regulated under the 1990 Federal Clean Air Act amendments as the most toxic of all known airborne chemicals,” as explained in the press release summarzing the study.
This deals with the high cost of Oil in more than just a monetary sense. The Destruction of the Eco System, Water shed and soil. It explores the many oils spill disasters that have occurred over the last three decades up to the most recent incident in Mayflower , Arkansas.
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Track used for video ” The True Cost Of Oil” La búsqueda de Ianna
Track 8/12
Album Epic Soul Factory – Volume One by Epic Soul Factory
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Creative Commons
You can copy, distribute, advertise and play this track as long as you:
• Give credit to the artist
• Don’t use this album for commercial purposes
• Distribute all derivative works under the same license
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Photos for Mayflower Arkansas captured from the work of Photojournalist Adam Randall
The full video can be seen here
All other images used include the name of the Photographer / creator. When neither was available a link to the site where the image was found was included for reference.
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On March 24, 1989, shortly after midnight, the oil tanker Exxon Valdez struck Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound, Alaska, spilling more than 11 million gallons of crude oil. The spill was the largest in U.S. history and tested the abilities of local, national, and industrial organizations to prepare for, and respond to, a disaster of such magnitude. Many factors complicated the cleanup efforts following the spill. The size of the spill and its remote location, accessible only by helicopter and boat, made government and industry efforts difficult and tested existing plans for dealing with such an event.
The spill posed threats to the delicate food chain that supports Prince William Sound’s commercial fishing industry. Also in danger were ten million migratory shore birds and waterfowl, hundreds of sea otters, dozens of other species, such as harbor porpoises and sea lions, and several varieties of whales.
Since the incident occurred in open navigable waters, the U.S. Coast Guard’s On-Scene Coordinator had authority for all activities related to the cleanup effort. His first action was to immediately close the Port of Valdez to all traffic. A U.S. Coast Guard at USCG investigator, along with a representative from the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, visited the scene of the incident to assess the damage. By noon on Friday, March 25, the Alaska Regional Response Team was brought together by teleconference, and the National Response Team was activated soon thereafter.
Three methods were tried in the effort to clean up the spill:
Burning
Mechanical Cleanup
Chemical Dispersants
In the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez incident, Congress passed the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, which required the Coast Guard to strengthen its regulations on oil tank vessels and oil tank owners and operators. Today, tank hulls provide better protection against spills resulting from a similar accident, and communications between vessel captains and vessel traffic centers have improved to make for safer sailing.
When the Exxon Valdez ran ashore off Prince William Sound on March 24, 1989, it wasn’t the first tanker to founder at sea. It was, however, the first tanker to deposit its load — 11 million gallons of crude oil, eventually covering 11,000 square miles of ocean — in such an economically and environmentally important ecosystem, and thus squarely in the public eye.
To this day, images of oil-choked birds and oil-fouled shorelines are burned into the memories of a generation. Local and national outrage forced Exxon into paying billions of dollars to clean the mess. Some of this money went to scientists who monitored the region’s recovery. For the first time, researchers had the resources necessary to thoroughly study an oil spill’s effects. These proved even uglier than they first appeared.
Researchers expected the oil to break up in a few years. Instead, it will take more than a century. They found that oil’s compounds, especially polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons — carcinogenic molecules that attach to fat, and refuse to break down in water — are toxic at levels hundreds, even thousands of times lower than was previously believed.
The Valdez pollution set off a cascade of environmental effects that have yet to be fully understood, but have at least been measured. Few of the region’s fish, bird and marine mammal populations have recovered. To the naked eye, Prince William Sound is beautiful and wild — but beneath the surface, it is profoundly damaged. As the Exxon Valdez Oil
Spill Trustee Council recently reported, oil in many areas “is nearly as toxic as it was the first few weeks after the spill.”
The federal economic stimulus package passed in January contains roughly $4 billion for clean water, of which $1.2 billion is earmarked for “green infrastructure” — green roofs, porous concretes, and other technologies that can at least reduce the surges that cause sewage plants to overflow.
It’s a welcome investment, said Baer, but the EPA estimates that $390 billion is needed to upgrade water systems nationwide, and Gann called the stimulus figure “a down payment” on what’s needed. Moreover, said Baer, “Global warming is going to be one more added stress on our infrastructure. Storms will be more intense, and you’re going to see more intense runoffs and overflows.”
The effects of all this oil have yet to be quantified. Unlike Prince William Sound, researchers haven’t spent decades looking for damage caused by chronic oil exposures in
America’s waters. It’s not inconceivable that a state of permanent toxicity has come to seem natural.
If oil “kills all these organisms through long-term exposures in
Prince William Sound,” said Peterson, “think what it’s doing in Boston
Harbor and San Pedro and every other place where this is going on.”
…
Exxon Valdez Oil Spill
Administrator Bill Reilly at the Exxon Valdez oil spill cleanup site, August 1989
Exxon has not yet recovered a responsible reputation to this day, even if it has slowly introduced green energy and renewable energy resources in the market. The name Exxon, to this day, is still synonymous to the concept of man-made disaster. After all, the damage caused by the oil spill was massive and affected sea and water creatures, as well as ruined the livelihood of thousands of people dependent on fishery resources off the coast of Alaska.
After the billions of dollars spent on restoring the Exxon image, the company has failed to restore its reputation after the oil spill incident. Exxon still has one of the dirtiest company images on earth. The accident is touted to be one of the worst ways to handle a crisis. Exxon has gotten one of the most damaging portrayals in mass media, due entirely to the company’s fault of not communicating properly with the publics right after the incident.
In a time of environmental consciousness, Exxon has remained in the minds of people as a company that is environmentally damaging and irresponsible. The perception of the public is the cause behind the fact that Exxon has never survived the crisis.
To eradicate its irresponsible image, Exxon has to do the opposite: be environmentally responsible. This is a tall order to overturn public perception that has festered through two decades. While it has already put technological measures in place so as not to repeat the disaster, the issue has always been one of public image and reputation.
No matter how Exxon passed a good part of the blame after the spill to other groups such as the Coast Guard and
It can be concluded that Exxon’s long delay in responding publicly to the problems, in the many ways and means that it could have had, caused the company’s irreparable reputational damage.
To this day, the Exxon Valdez incident remains one of the most glaring examples of how not to handle a crisis.
Twenty years after the oil spill disaster on March 24, 1989 that released 10.8 million gallons of oil into Alaska’s Prince William Sound, Exxon has spent more than $2 billion in massive clean-up campaigns. However, oil still remains and some wildlife habitats will still take a long time to recover.
The Exxon Valdez incident is one of the worst environmental disasters in recent times. It is also a classic case of how a massive crisis was poorly handled. The management did not act quickly nor on time, making the damage bigger than it even was in the perception of the public.
By 1992 or so, the 37,000-ton spill in Prince William Sound had been washed (at Exxon’s expense) off the rocks and beaches, or simply weathered away. Now, 13 years after the Exxon Valdez spill, a casual observer won’t see oil.
Oil does remain in sheltered locations – immune to wind and wave – mainly on about 20 acres of rocky shore, according to an extensive 2001 survey. Although that’s a lot less than the 149 kilometers of shoreline that were heavily oiled during the spill, “In terms of critical habitat for wildlife, that is a significant amount, because there is not a large amount of suitable habitat, you have sheer rock, or rocky transition zones,” says Phil Mundy, science director of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council, which administers a research and restoration program in the sound, funded by a bank-ful of Exxon settlement money.
Valdez oil moved from Prince William Sound to the Gulf of Alaska. Courtesy David Page
Totally toxic? Oil loses some of its toxic components through exposure to the weather, but the deep pockets left in the sound are still surprisingly toxic. The report from the 2001 survey said:
“Twenty subsurface pits [of 6,775 dug in Prince William Sound] were classified as heavily oiled. Oil saturated all of the interstitial spaces and was extremely repugnant. These ‘worst case’ pits exhibited an oil mixture that resembled oil encountered in 1989 a few weeks after the spill — highly odiferous, lightly weathered, and very fluid.”
Mundy finds this surprising. “If you’d asked in ’89, would we still have oil around in 2002? I’d have said it’s highly unlikely. One thing we have learned, contrary to what you find in the literature, especially in literature sponsored by the oil companies … is that oil that’s not exposed to the atmosphere … can surface time and again, to do damage at local scales.”
In general, says Robert Spies, a marine biologist and former chief scientist for the trustee council, “Oil tends to clean itself up, it’s a curve. You get rapid loss in one to two years, then the rate begins to fall off. Where there was protection from the physical energy of the ocean, it can take a long time to break down.”
Before we exonerate Exxon in the Valdez spill, let’s focus on the oil remaining under the rocks. “You can go to Prince William Sound and dig down in the rocky cobble beaches, and find oil as toxic as the day it was spilled,” says Richard Charter, a marine conservation advocate with the non-profit Environmental Defense. (Full disclosure: the author is a member of Environmental Defense.)
The 1989 picture shows pools of oil on an exposed boulder beach. In 1992, the same beach shows no oil. A combination of natural and human processes removed most of the oil by 1992. Courtesy David Page
Some studies, Charter says, show that tiny concentrations of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (a group of toxic hydrocarbons ) from crude oil cause mutations in pink salmon eggs. “That means that components of oil, the fractions with the most toxicity, have mutagenic properties at levels much lower than we thought, and are much more persistent in the food chain than we ever believed possible.”
In a report cited by a 2002 National Research Council book Oil in the Sea III), researchers from the Alaska Fisheries Science Center tried to sum up the effect of oil on pink salmon, the big commercial fish in Prince William Sound before the spill:
“Laboratory studies designed to emulate post-spill conditions in [Prince William Sound] verified that embryos are sensitive to long-term exposures to weathered oil in the low part per billion (ppb) range of PAH [polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons ]. Mortalities, abnormalities, histopathological damage, and other biological effects increased with embryo exposure to ppb concentrations of PAH. …Sensitivity of salmon embryos to weathered crude oil at ppb concentrations is unprecedented…”
Another indication that spilled oil does not just disappear comes from researchers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, who found fuel oil 30 years after a spill on Cape Cod. Woods Hole couldn’t bother talking with us, but their press release said samples from 2 to 11 inches deep in the marsh “contained petroleum hydrocarbons in similar concentrations to those observed shortly after the1969 spill. … the team found that compounds consistent with No. 2 fuel oil were still present in the sediments and may remain there indefinitely.”
At approximately 11 p.m. Friday, July 1, 2011, a break occurred in a 12-inch pipeline under the Yellowstone River 20 miles upstream from Billings, Montana. The ruptured pipeline is owned by ExxonMobil Pipeline Company. According to the company, an estimated 1,000 barrels of oil entered the river before the pipeline was closed. EPA is leading the response in close coordination with the state of Montana and other federal agencies. EPA’s primary concern is protecting people’s health and the environment and will remain on-site to ensure cleanup and restoration efforts do just that. EPA continues to hold ExxonMobil, the responsible party, accountable for assessment and cleanup.
Caution was required as flood waters rise possibly endangering the 20 year old pipeline. Exxon claims to have taken this into consideration decided after consideration of t heir safety record that the pipeline would again be opened in spite of concerns to its continued integrity as flood waters rise in the Yellowstone River in Montana . Speculation is that the rupture in the pipeline was indeed caused by debris damage below the water line. One stops to wonder how these safety decisions were determined and by whom. As it is obvious Exxon’s safety record is less than satisfactory, in light of only a few of the oil leaks and spills in which it has been directly involved over the last decade or so.
Nearly a year after an Exxon Mobile pipeline leaked 60,000 gallons of oil into the Yellowstone River, Montana environmental officials are looking for remaining contamination on the stream after workers recently spotted sheens on the water downstream from the leak site, according to a report from the Associated Press.
The July 1 accident spilled an estimated 1,500 barrels of crude, or 63,000 gallons, into the Yellowstone River near Laurel.
In recent weeks, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks workers have found sheens or other evidence of oil at several sites downstream of the spill, said agency spokesman Bob Gibson.
Department of Environmental Quality scientist Laura Alvey said that includes a sheen she saw last week on an island east of Laurel. She said there was “no question” the sheen came from oil.
Homeowner Jim Swanson had contacted the DEQ after seeing sheens along the river. His property suffered extensive contamination last year, which Exxon workers attempted to remove as part of an estimated $135 million in cleanup and pipeline repair work.
The company recovered an estimated 1 percent of the oil spilled.
The verdict stemmed from the contamination of drinking water supplied to 160 homeowners due to a gasoline leak, Bloomberg noted. The oil giant argued that the 2011 jury award was excessive. A state appeals court agreed and ordered a new trial in Baltimore County Circuit Court.
Additionally, the appeals court reverse the jury’s finding of fraud against Exxon Mobil. That, too, will be a question in the new trial.
The leak, which lasted 37 days, caused 26,000 gallons of gasoline to seep into groundwater in the rural Maryland community. The jury awarded residents $495 million in compensatory damages in addition to the punitive award
The dirty energy giant is hoping to withdraw up to 250,000 gallons per day of surface water from Oquaga Creek near the Farnham Road bridge crossing on Route 41 in Sanford, New York. Roughly 300 residents showed up to comment on the proposal, which has stirred public anger and concern over the potential impacts on the local environment and water supplies.
The Exxon subsidiary’s draft docket stipulates that the surface water will be used for unconventional gas drilling via hydraulic fracturing (a.k.a. fracking). XTO says the clean water will be used to mix cement and create a “drilling mud/fluid” cocktail. No waste problem, of course.
Beneath the Exxon PR spin, the true costs of withdrawing a quarter million gallons of water per day are estimated at around $17,700 - for a tiny patch of land.
Consider the fact that the fracking rush is exacting these very same direct costs on many North Americans.
Recently, ExxonMobil has continued with its misleading media blitz to pacify the public’s real concerns around the dangers of unconventional gas exploration. Exxon’s misdirection appeared this month on TV and in full-page ads [pdf] in The New York Times and Washington Post. The ads falsely presented fracking for unconventional gas as a time-tested way to unlock “cleaner-burning” fuel from shale rock. The problem with Exxon’s efforts to greenwash unconventional gas is that according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) [pdf] as well as a recent Cornell study, unlocking this dirty energy is perhaps just as polluting if not moreso than coal. Unconventional gas, despite what Exxon would have us believe, is just another polluting fossil fuel.
Hydraulic fracturing or fracking is a means of natural gas extraction employed in deep natural gas well drilling. Once a well is drilled, millions of gallons of water, sand and proprietary chemicals are injected, under high pressure, into a well. The pressure fractures the shale and props open fissures that enable natural gas to flow more freely out of the well.
What is horizontal hydraulic fracturing?
Horizontal hydrofracking is a means of tapping shale deposits containing natural gas that were previously inaccessible by conventional drilling. Vertical hydrofracking is used to extend the life of an existing well once its productivity starts to run out, sort of a last resort. Horizontal fracking differs in that it uses a mixture of 596 chemicals, many of them proprietary, and millions of gallons of water per frack. This water then becomes contaminated and must be cleaned and disposed of.
What is the Halliburton Loophole?
In 2005, the Bush/ Cheney Energy Bill exempted natural gas drilling from the Safe Drinking Water Act. It exempts companies from disclosing the chemicals used during hydraulic fracturing. Essentially, the provision took the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) off the job. It is now commonly referred to as the Halliburton Loophole.
What is the Safe Drinking Water Act?
In 1974, the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) was passed by Congress to ensure clean drinking water free from both natural and man-made contaminates.
What is the FRAC Act?
The FRAC Act (Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness to Chemical Act) is a House bill intended to repeal the Halliburton Loophole and to require the natural gas industry to disclose the chemicals they use.
How deep do natural gas wells go?
The average well is up to 8,000 feet deep. The depth of drinking water aquifers is about 1,000 feet. The problems typically stem from poor cement well casings that leak natural gas as well as fracking fluid into water wells.
How much water is used during the fracking process?
Generally 1-8 million gallons of water may be used to frack a well. A well may be fracked up to 18 times.
What fluids are used in the fracking process?
For each frack, 80-300 tons of chemicals may be used. Presently, the natural gas industry does not have to disclose the chemicals used, but scientists have identified volatile organic compounds (VOCs) such as benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene.
In what form does the natural gas come out of the well?
The gas comes up wet in produced water and has to be separated from the wastewater on the surface. Only 30-50% of the water is typically recovered from a well. This wastewater can be highly toxic.
What is done with the wastewater?
Evaporators evaporate off VOCs and condensate tanks steam off VOCs, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The wastewater is then trucked to water treatment facilities.
What is a well’s potential to cause air pollution?
As the VOCs are evaporated and come into contact with diesel exhaust from trucks and generators at the well site, ground level ozone is produced. Ozone plumes can travel up to 250 miles.
The Democratic Committee staff analyzed the data provided by the companies about their practices, finding that:
The 14 leading oil and gas service companies used more than 780 million gallons of hydraulic fracturing products, not including water added at the well site. Overall, the companies used more than 2,500 hydraulic fracturing products containing 750 different chemicals and other components.
The components used in the hydraulic fracturing products ranged from generally harmless and common substances, such as salt and citric acid, to extremely toxic substances, such as benzene and lead. Some companies even used instant coffee and walnut hulls in their fracturing fluids.
Between 2005 and 2009, the oil and gas service companies used hydraulic fracturing products containing 29 chemicals that are known or possible human carcinogens, regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) for their risks to human health, or listed as hazardous air pollutants under the Clean Air Act.
The BTEX compounds – benzene, toluene, xylene, and ethylbenzene – are SDWA contaminants and hazardous air pollutants. Benzene also is a known human carcinogen. The hydraulic fracturing companies injected 11.4 million gallons of products containing at least one BTEX chemical over the five-year period.
Methanol, which was used in 342 hydraulic fracturing products, was the most widely used chemical between 2005 and 2009. The substance is a hazardous air pollutant and is on the candidate list for potential regulation under SDWA. Isopropyl alcohol, 2-butoxyethanol, and ethylene glycol were the other most widely used chemicals.
Many of the hydraulic fracturing fluids contain chemical components that are listed as “proprietary” or “trade secret.” The companies used 94 million gallons of 279 products that contained at least one chemical or component that the manufacturers deemed proprietary or a trade secret. In many instances, the oil and gas service companies were unable to identify these “proprietary” chemicals, suggesting that the companies are injecting fluids containing chemicals that they themselves cannot identify.
….
Weird and Frightening Effects of Fracking You May Not Know About
What happens if you’re a land owner who lives on a profitable mineral site, but doesn’t want corporations fracking on your land? Well, apparently, they will maneuver a way to frack your land anyway.
In a new report published last week, Reuters explored oil and gas companies’ nationwide land grab. The report focused on Chesapeake Energy Corporation, which has become the leader in petitioning state agencies when land owners refuse to sign over their land to fracking or oil drilling companies. In Texas, since 2005, Chesapeake had made 1,628 requests to drill on land that owners refuse to lease— nearly twice as many sought by its rival Exxon Mobil — and the state has only rejected five of them.
Chesapeake has made land-leasing one of its top priorities, controlling 15 million acres and spending more than $31 billion to acquire drilling rights. Playing the land grab game allows corporations to attain prospective drilling locations while locking out competition. With such a profitable opportunity, Chesapeake is making sure it’s getting its way by any means necessary. One employee was even caught saying on tape: “If properties don’t want to sign, if we have 90 percent secured of the well that we need, we have the power to put these people in the lease without their permission. …We can do whatever we want.”
When it comes to profit, property rights just don’t seem to matter. And a mix of money in politics, as well as a desire for profit, has weakened regulation.
“I don’t think the state should be able to take a landowner’s rights to generate a profit for a private company,” said David Conrad, an Ohio resident who opposes fracking, but will soon have a Chesapeake well under his home.
However, as Reuters reported:
In its petition, Chesapeake told regulators its proposed drilling unit could produce 4.5 million barrels of oil and 3.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas — if the plots of the 49 land owners who didn’t lease their property to Chesapeake were included.
If not, Chesapeake said, the unit would be 75 percent less productive and would miss out on an additional $71 million in revenue, according to its application. That math carried the day.
Waste-Filled Wine
If you don’t hate fracking already, what if you learned that it can affect wine? Furious? Me too.
Vineyard owners in California are growing increasingly wary of fracking as gas companies begin preliminary operations. Venoco has started exploring Monterey Shale for both oil and gas drilling. Last year, the company filed an application for drilling permits in Monterey County, according to Simon Salinas, a member of the county’s Board of Supervisors, and it already holds hundreds of thousands of acres in the formation, has drilled more than 20 wells and has invested $100 million in oil exploration.
With vineyards and farmlands covering 200,000 acres of Monterey that help make up an $8 billion agricultural business, Salinas told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, “Anything that can taint our water and food supply could be devastating to our economy.”
Paula Getzelman, a grape-grower in Monterey, said, “If you don’t have a good water supply, your land is worthless.”
Besides fears of contaminated water, Salinas also mentioned that when residents realize the fracking process uses millions of gallons of water that they need for their crops, they will be quite upset.
But even if these threats don’t come to fruition, residents are still concerned that fracking will have a negative effect on their marketability. After all, with cities like Napa and Sonoma not too far away, who’s going to want Monterey’s fracking wine?
Across the country, in Brooklyn, NY, a winery with similar fears about fracking in the Marcellus shale, recently hosted an anti-fracking benefit.
The potential for fracking affects Brooklyn Winery, as we source grapes for our wine from a number of vineyards in New York state and many of our wine bar’s seasonal menu items include ingredients grown on upstate farms.
Dairy Cows At Risk
Got milk? Maybe not for long. According to research from Penn State University, fracking has been found to reduce dairy production.
The university researchers set out to uncover how fracking in Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale region is affecting dairy farming, the state’s top agricultural sector. The researchers examined dairy cow numbers, milk production and fracking activity among various counties in Pennsylvania between 2007 and 2010. They found that counties with 150 or more Marcellus Shale wells saw a 19 percent decrease in dairy cows, while counties with no wells saw only a 1.2 percent decrease. In a similar fashion, milk production in these counties with 150 or more wells declined by an average of 18.5 percent, while counties with no wells had about a 1 percent decline.
This research seems to challenge the popular narrative that farmers use the money they receive from fracking companies through leasing their land to improve their farms. The researchers note that additional research is needed to figure out the exact cause of the decrease of dairy production. One researcher wondered whether farmers were taking the money they received from their leases and going into a new occupation, or if they are being forced out of farming due to fracking’s environmental effects or a decrease in their farm’s marketability.
Contaminated Food, Stillborn Calves and Poisoned Animals
Imagine fracking fluid seeping out of your next burger — not appetizing? It may be a reality as more and more livestock are raised near fracking sites. Hundreds of animals have already been affected after coming into contact with fracking fluid. Last year, 28 beef cattle in Pennsylvania were exposed to the fluid. Only three of the 11 calves these cattle gave birth to survived. In Louisiana a few years ago, 16 cows dropped dead after drinking fracking fluid.
As New York Governor Cuomo soon decides whether or not to frack in the state’s economically struggling areas, Rita Yelda of Food & Water Watch recently wrote a commentary urging him to consider fracking’s detrimental effects on food.
She wrote:
New York is a national leader in a variety of agricultural products, and about 25 percent of the state’s land area is used for food production. This space may end up being shared with thousands of air polluting drill rigs, and could also be affected by soil contamination from leaks, flares, explosions, fires and experimental waste disposal methods.
According to Energy Tomorrow, a site sponsored by the American Petroleum Institute, of the 2,000+ wells drilled since 2008, there has been $2.8 million in direct economic benefits spending on wages, payments on capital, and taxes; $1.2 million in indirect (business-to-business) benefits; and $1.5 million in induced (business-to-consumer and consumer-to-business) benefits—per well! The regional economic impact in 2010 alone was $11.2 billion. And two million dollars was paid—per well—in federal, state, and local taxes.
With the current rhetoric around the economy, job creation, and the need to build national and state revenue, these numbers are difficult to ignore as well as what this money has brought to Pennsylvania and New York during, and since, the 2007 recession.
However, after a company asked for drilling rights to his land, Josh Fox began to research the mining process, a project that eventually developed into his controversial documentary Gasland. In one dramatic sequence in the film, drinking water from a kitchen faucet burst into flames due to its high methane content. Several residents testified that natural gas mining practices caused their subsequent health problems, as methane and a mixture of 596 chemicals used in the drilling process contaminated well water supplies. In doing so, the contamination also destroyed the homeowners’ property and resale values, rendering these residents no recourse to sell and move elsewhere.
Lower 48 States Shale Plays. Plays refers to geologic areas targeted by drilling companies. Image from here.
Now the true costs of withdrawing a quarter million gallons of water per day are estimated at around $17,700 in Maryland for a tiny patch of land. Factor in the supposed gains from leasing their land and then deduct the livestock lost. Plus the medical bills incurred later on in life for long term illnesses, lost wages, devastation of crops and / or livestock and what do these land owners get? The privilege to have these oil companies loot and pillage their land, livelihood, water and lives for gas. With , of course the knowledge and assistance of the government. All over the Nation. That isn;t even including the oils companies penchant for lying , misleading and cutting corners to increase profit at the expense of water , land , animal and human safety. Getting the picture yet ?
Spilled crude oil is seen in a drainage ditch near evacuated homes in Mayflower, Arkansas, on Sunday, March 31. An Exxon Mobil pipeline carrying Canadian crude oil ruptured on March 29 causing the evacuation of about two dozen homes. Mayflower residents have filed a class-action lawsuit against the company. / http://edition.cnn.com/2013/04/08/us/arkansas-oil-spill/index.html?sr=sharebar_twitter
Thank You Exxon: Mayflower, Arkansas’ New Oil Lake
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — Exxon Mobil Corp. was found liable Tuesday in a long-running lawsuit over groundwater contamination caused by the gasoline additive MTBE, and the jury ordered the oil giant to pay $236 million to New Hampshire to clean it up.
The jurors reached their verdicts in less than 90 minutes, after sitting through nearly three months of testimony. Lawyers on both sides were stunned by the speed with which they reached the verdict on liability and even more stunned when the jurors took barely 20 minutes more to fill out the damages verdict.
Juror Dawn Booker of Pembroke told The Associated Press that all 12 felt ‘‘very, very confident about our decision.’’
Attorney General Michael Delaney said he anticipates an appeal and doesn’t expect to see the money ‘‘anytime soon.’’ He said the case and the verdict are historic.
The verdict is more than twice the $105 million jurors awarded the New York City Water District in 2009 in its case against Exxon Mobil over MTBE contamination. That case is on appeal.
Jessica Grant, the state’s lead lawyer, said it was the largest verdict ever in an MTBE case, though a financial analyst noted that the award represents about two days’ worth of profit for the company.
Jurors found that Exxon Mobil was negligent in adding MTBE to its gasoline and that it was a defective product. They also found Exxon Mobil liable for failing to warn distributors and consumers about its contaminating characteristics.
The jury determined that the hazards of using MTBE gasoline were not obvious to state officials, who opted into the reformulated gasoline program in 1991 to help reduce smog in the state’s four southernmost counties.
Jurors also rejected Exxon Mobil’s defense that more than 300 junkyard and gas station owners not named in the lawsuit were responsible for much of the contamination. They also absolved the state of responsibility for the contamination.
‘‘Exxon will probably make close to a $40 billion profit this year, Gheit said. ‘‘That’s (the award) two days’ work.’’
He said it’s no surprise that Exxon Mobil would take the 10-year-old lawsuit to trial, saying the company ‘‘will make you sweat for every dollar you think you’re going to get.’’ Company leaders view it as a matter of principle, he said.
New Hampshire filed its product liability lawsuit a decade ago against 26 oil companies and distributers, claiming that MTBE — methyl tertiary butyl ether — is a defective product because of its propensity to travel farther and faster and contaminate larger quantities of water than gasoline without additives. The state is seeking more than $700 million to test and monitor 250,000 private wells and clean up an estimated 5,600 contaminated sites, and so far has collected more than $120 million in settlement money.
Lawyers for Exxon Mobil, the only defendant that has not settled with the state, argue that MTBE did exactly what it was supposed to do — replace lead in gasoline and cut smog in compliance with the 1990 Clean Air Act. They opened their case by attempting to cast doubt on state witnesses who claimed to be surprised by memos Mickelson wrote describing environmental concerns about MTBE. Former Department of Environmental Services Commissioner Robert Varney testified earlier that he was shocked Exxon Mobil did not share Mickelson’s findings with the state, but Mickelson said the information was widely available at the time.
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Bloomberg News
MTBE Still a Water Risk, Witness Says at ExxonMobil Trial
By Don Jeffrey and Sarah Earle on January 16, 2013
Fogg testified the additive can zigzag through fractured bedrock in unpredictable patterns and remain in groundwater longer than other compounds. Fogg said the additive poses unique risks to drinking water when leaked from underground storage tanks, based on its chemical properties and the state’s geology.
“The contaminant will tend to move along fractures that are open and connected,” he told jurors. “Those fractures can be quite complex.”
Creates Hazard
As a result, MTBE creates a hazard that is difficult to detect and equally difficult to clean up, Fogg said, showing jurors slides that demonstrated the way MTBE can bleed into water supplies. The state sought to counter claims by the oil companies that MTBE has largely disappeared from the water supply, as well as claims that the additive is safer than some of the chemicals it displaces when mixed with gasoline.
Chemicals such as benzene “don’t move very fast or very far, Fogg said. ‘‘They tend to stabilize because of biodegradation.’’
The state claimed in opening arguments that the oil companies knew that if they added MTBE to gasoline it would increase the risk and costs associated with contamination.
‘‘Exxon decided to disregard the recommendation of its own employees and put MTBE in gasoline,’’ Jessica Grant, a lawyer for the state, told jurors Jan. 14. ‘‘In 1984, Exxon anticipated that if it added MTBE to its gasoline, the number of contamination incidents would triple. These incidents would take longer to clean up and cost five times as much.’’
Dugan says Exxon Mobil delayed using MTBE as a gasoline additive to study its health and environmental impacts. He said some company executives criticized his study committee for taking so long and reducing Exxon Mobil’s competitive edge in the marketplace.
Dugan said the study committee in June 1985 recommended using MTBE, or methyl tertiary butyl ether, saying the environmental risks were manageable. He testified that the committee’s final report included concerns raised by former Exxon Mobil engineer Barbara Mickelson, including that MTBE would move farther and faster if leaked into water supplies and be more costly and difficult to remediate.
“We wanted management to be fully aware of all the concerns raised,” Dugan said.
Dugan said they rejected using methanol as being too hazardous, with as little as a teaspoonful capable of causing blindness. Ethanol was ruled out, he said, because it could cause vapor lock in car engines and some auto manufacturers were warning consumers that they would not honor warranties if the car owner used gasoline with ethanol.
The state claims MTBE is a defective product and that Exxon Mobil failed to warn state officials about potential adverse effects.
Over the state’s objections, Dugan testified Tuesday that Mickelson shared her concerns with EPA officials.
Attorney Jessica Grant, representing the state, told Superior Court Judge Peter Fauver that Exxon Mobil’s lawyers “are trying to mislead this jury into thinking they were candid with the EPA when they weren’t.” Fauver allowed defense attorney David Lender to ask whether Mickelson shared her findings with the EPA but would not permit Dugan to elaborate.
Caution was required as flood waters rise possibly endangering the 20 year old pipeline. Exxon claims to have taken this into consideration decided after consideration of t heir safety record that the pipeline would again be opened in spite of concerns to its continued integrity as flood waters rise in the Yellowstone River in Montana . Speculation is that the rupture in the pipeline was indeed caused by debris damage below the water line. One stops to wonder how these safety decisions were determined and by whom. As it is obvious Exxon’s safety record is less than satisfactory, in light of only a few of the oil leaks and spills in which it has been directly involved over the last decade or so.
The Ixtoc I exploratory well blew out in June, 1979, in the Bay of Campeche, Mexico. The well spilled an estimated 140 million gallons of oil, the second-largest spill in history.NOAA
More people + more industry = more oil floating on water At any rate, more oil will be moving across the ocean in the future, as a rising standard of living and growing population feed an overwhelming thirst for fossil fuels.
To Charter, these factors are central to the oil-spill equation. “We have been ignoring for quite a few decades the fact that oil consumption, which we take for granted in industrial societies, has an environmental cost that is paid by living resources. Things die in nature so we can get this oil. … Somewhere, some part of the environment is being poisoned for every gallon of gasoline that arrives in a filling station.”
And it’s not just tankers that spill oil, Charter adds. The largest peacetime oil spill in history, the Ixtoc I well, spewed 140 million gallons in the Gulf of Campeche, in the southern Gulf of Mexico.
That was a shallow well. As offshore drills work in the Arctic ice, and in deeper water in the Gulf of Mexico and elsewhere, “You can create accidents you can’t fix,” says Charter.
1997
As of 1997, Fucus had not yet fully recovered in the upper intertidal zone on shores oriented towards direct sunlight, but in many locations, recovery of intertidal communities had been substantial. In other habitat types, such as estuaries and cobble beaches, many species did not show signs of recovery when they were last surveyed in 1991. Studies on the effects of clean-up activities on oiled and washed beaches showed some invertebrates, like molluscs and annelid worms were still much less abundant than on comparable unoiled beaches through 1997. It is undetermined how much recovery has occurred in these locations since 1997, because further work has not been conducted.
Lingering oil is still present in some intertidal areas within the spill zone. Recent studies indicate that at beaches with pockets of buried lingering oil, high amphipod mortality is associated with elevated hydrocarbon concentrations. Moreover, the recovery objective states that the intertidal zone must provide uncontaminated food to top predators, including human subsistence users. As recently as 2009, some bird species which rely exclusively on the intertidal zone (harlequin ducks) were still being exposed to hydrocarbons. Although the route of oil exposure has not been established, it is possible they are consuming contaminated prey during feeding. In addition, the slow recovery of some soft-sediment intertidal invertebrates, the presence of lingering, bio-available oil, the continuing oil exposure of obligate intertidal foragers that are known to eat bivalves, and the lack of recent data characterizing the intertidal community indicate that this resource has not fully recovered from the effects of the oil spill.
Taking into account what we know today and all we have seen is it a wonder that people are up in arms and extremely concerned with the prospect of the XL Pipeline. These companies have displayed nothing but contempt for the environment and the welfare of the people affected by their spills.
The Mayflower, Arkansas, spill is nothing compared to the Gulf disaster, of course. Fourteen ducks, two turtles and one muskrat were oiled as a result of the Friday spill, according to ExxonMobil. Two ducks died. About two-dozen homes were evacuated. The full toll of the Gulf Coast Oil Disaster (the news media started calling it that because “spill” wasn’t big enough to be accurate) is still being tabulated, but the numbers are of another magnitude: 210 million gallons of oil, as well as 464 oiled sea turtles and 8,567 affected birds, many of them dead, according to an April 2012 report compiled by two federal agencies and five states.
Both incidents, however, are pieces in a bigger puzzle.
They highlight, once again, that America is addicted to fossil fuels and needs to invest more seriously and urgently in alternatives like wind, solar and nuclear.
These events never seem to really stick in our collective memory.
But they should
If they did, they would inform our decision-making.
The way things work now, oil spills are seen by some politicians as expected — as externalities of our condition, like lung cancer to a smoker.
U.S. Rep. Tim Griffin, an Arkansas Republican, reportedly told a local radio station on Wednesday that we have oil pipeline accidents “just like we have car accidents” and that he supports further development of the system that caused the spill in his state.
How silly, right?
Rivers of oil in Arkansas town
Imagine this much oil in your driveway
We shouldn’t expect oil spills to be part of modern reality.
There are much better ways forward.
Environmental groups are right to use the Arkansas spill as a cautionary tale — as one of many reasons that the Obama administration should reject a proposed pipeline, called the Keystone XL, which would carry this risky type of crude from Canada to the Gulf Coast of the United States for processing.
The groups contend this thicker “oil sands” material is more corrosive to pipelines and therefore more dangerous to transport across the United States.
The National Resource Defense Council, in a recent blog post, says oil sands crude also is transported at higher temperatures, putting additional stress on pipelines; and it’s thicker and harder to clean up than conventional crude.
….
It is truly sad that the collective memory for disasters that destroy live s and eco system is barely a tear at most two. Politicians have an even shorter memory span as they will turn around and justify the risks of a mess such as this by comparing it to an auto accident. Since when does an auto accident take decades to clean up . Since when does an auto accident devastate entire eco systems. Families , yes , individual lives yes. However , it is disingenuous at best and a downright lie to claim that transporting this filthy tar sand can be compared to something as common place as driving a car.
For all their big talk about pollution and climate change, I am hard pressed to believe that any of the rhetoric being spewed has much of anything to do with pollution or the impact o the planet. Rather it has more to do with the ability to impose more taxes, provide more special interest opportunities to lobbyists of the Energy Companies and of course fill their own money hungry never ending need for more. More power, more money , more clout , more connections to make that money once time is up on the Hill.
What is it about Americans today ?
Why are we asleep at the helm?
Why do we care so little until it affects us in our own back yard?
Do we not understand that the idea of “Drill baby , drill” has consequences?
What is it about weaning ourselves off of fossil fuel that escapes us ?
Exactly what is it going to take to make us wake the hell up and understand that we are poisoning our world, our children and ourselves!!
I understand why it is in the best interest of the politicians to look the other way. They have lost of money to make if they help these criminals get away with their plans.
But what’s in it for you ?
What do you get out of looking the other way?
How much money do you stand t make?
But more importantly …..if you do nothing and continue towing the line and following the lead of the enablers. What do you stand t o lose? One wonders how many have reflected on that thought , honestly and thoroughly.
The most frustrating aspect of all of t his is that you are assisting the enablers by unlocking the doors to your homes so t hat they can lead the thieves in to steal from you .
Does that make any kind of sense to any of you who have taken the we need oil at all costs approach?
Are you starting to get just how you and yours will be paying for this oil addiction we suffer from?
Aside fro those who actually stand to make money off of the oil sales what do you get from it ?
Convenience?
Not having to deal with new technology or having to pay for it ?
I have no idea what is going through those heads. I cannot even fathom the rationalization that might be taking place. But in case you missed it let me break it down for you ……
The Oil companies could care less about you , your children , your land or your water. All they care about is the loads of money they stand to make by selling you the oil they polluted you land and water and poisoned your children to obtain
The politicians claim they care but in actuality the only thing they care about is keeping their benefactors in the oil companies happy so they can continue making all that money and ensuring their future posts in the oil companies when they retire from public service. All thanks to t heir having helped poison your land your water and your children.
And please spare me the speech about the politicians being on the take personal speculation on my part. Because the only thing i need do is remind you that it was Bush/Cheney who gave Halliburton and every other oil company on the face of this earth the green light to be able to peddle their poisons with impunity. Just like it was Obama who gave Big Pharma the green light to peddle their poisons with impunity.
When a company that holds their money more dear than their responsibility to the communities where they function and thereby the people who live in those communities. One cannot with a clear conscience believe nor expect that said company will do the right thing. They can be and will be expected to do what is best for their bottom line , but not much else. Truly the way I see it this country is headed for a precipice that opens up over a dark and deep abyss and most f us will fall in never to be seen from or heard from again.
My question is will the rest of us allow ourselves to be sucked in after them?
Or are we going to stand up for what is right , what is just and fight back?
To Add insult to injury we have this little jewel……
Crews work to clean up from an oil pipeline spill in a Mayflower, Ark., neighborhood Wednesday, April 3, 2013. An ExxonMobil pipeline ruptured last week and spewed thousands of barrels of crude oil. (AP Photo/Danny Johnston)
The ExxonMobil Corp. has been honored with a “Green Cross of Safety” medal, bestowed as the oil giant was cleaning up thousands of barrels of heavy Canadian oil spilled by a pipeline rupture onto the streets and backyards of a small town in Arkansas.
ExxonMobil was hit with a $5 million lawsuit Monday by residents of Mayflower, Ark., who said in their filing: “This Arkansas class action lawsuit involves the worst crude oil and tar sands spill in Arkansas history.” The suit estimates that up to 20,000 barrels spilled: ExxonMobil has estimated the spill at 3,500 to 5,000 barrels.
Rex Tillerson, Chairman/CEO of ExxonMobil, accepts “Green Cross of Safety” medal while crews from the oil company clean up a pipeline spill in Arkansas.
The mess in Arkansas didn’t stop ExxonMobil Chairman/CEO Rex W. Tillertson from accepting accolades from the National Safety Council. “It is an honor to receive this medal on behalf of the men and women of ExxonMobil,” said a proud Tillertson. “We hold this award in high esteem because it recognizes the deep commitment of our company and our people to a culture of safety.”
ExxonMobil is a sensitive oil giant. It waged a 15-year battle against a $5 billion punitive damages award from the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska, eventually reducing the award to $500 million. Lawyers from the Los Angeles firm of O’Melveny & Myers argued at a federal appellate court hearing in Seattle that Exxon had suffered enough and paid out enough already.
The National Safety Council, on whose board sits an ExxonMobil vice president, commended the oil giant for its “leadership and comprehensive commitment to safety excellence. In bestowing the Green Cross of Safety, it said:
“ExxonMobil distinguished itself over a period of years for outstanding achievements in workplace safety, community service, environmental stewardship and responsible citizenship.”
The recent Arkansas rupture, a 2-3″ gash in the 65-year-old Pegasus Pipeline, hit a town of 2,200 about 20 miles north of Little Rock. It forced evacuation of homes. ExxonMobil put a lid — literally — on news coverage. A no-fly zone was established over the spill. Journalists were barred from the school where ExxonMobil and state officials were meeting with local residents.
But as the boat edged closer to the dolphins in the Lung Kwu Chau Marine Park and the eager tourists reached for their cameras, their excitement quickly turned to shock and distress.
Dead guillemot covered in the glue like substance, photo by Darryl Thorpe/Cornwall Wildlife Trust
![[logo] US EPA](http://www.epa.gov/epafiles/images/logo_epaseal.gif){kind=logo}
A duck from Mayflower is washed at The HAWK Center, a wildlife rehabilitation center. / 
