Two years after oil from a BP well began gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, the U.S. Department of Justice has filed criminal charges alleging that a former BP employee destroyed critical evidence in the early days of the unfolding disaster.

The charges are the first to be filed in what the Obama administration has called the worst environmental disaster in American history, and they are significant because they target an individual employee for his actions.

According to an affidavit and complaint filed Tuesday, April 24 in a Louisiana court, Kurt Mix, a former drilling and completions engineer, deleted email and text messages he had sent to senior BP managers estimating that the amount of oil spewing into the Gulf was many times greater than the amount stated publicly. Mix was specifically instructed by attorneys contracted by BP to retain his records before he deleted them, the affidavit states.

In a statement released to reporters, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder indicated that more charges are likely, describing the indictment as “initial charges” in an ongoing investigation, and saying that the Department of Justice “will hold accountable those who violated the law.”

More than 200 million gallons of crude oil flowed into the Gulf of Mexico after a blowout caused the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig and the death of 11 workers on April 20, 2010. The spill continued, unabated, for nearly three months. Analysts have long expected criminal charges against BP or its employees.

A spokeswoman for the agency declined to say when more charges might be expected, or to explain why the case against Mix was the first to be made public.

Mix could not be reached for comment, and we were unable to leave him a message because his voicemail was full.

BP issued a statement saying that the company was cooperating with federal investigators and that “BP had clear policies requiring preservation of evidence in this case and has undertaken substantial and ongoing efforts to preserve evidence.”

According to an FBI affidavit submitted to the court along with the indictment, Mix, who worked for BP until January 2012, was directly involved in BP’s efforts to understand how much oil was flowing out of the broken Macondo well. On April 21, 2010, Mix estimated that between 68,000 and 138,000 barrels of oil were leaking each day — far more than the 5,000 barrels that were estimated publicly at the time.

On April 22, Mix received the first of six legal notices instructing him to retain his electronic records.

Yet, according to the affidavit, in early October, Mix allegedly deleted a string of more than 200 text messages on his iPhone that he had sent to a supervisor. The deleted texts, which the Department of Justice said were recovered forensically, included sensitive — and pessimistic — internal BP information sent while the company was attempting what it called a “Top Kill” effort to stop the gushing oil on May 26, 2010.

Mix wrote that the effort — which he was directly involved in — was unlikely to succeed. “Too much flowrate — over 15,000 and too large an orifice. Pumped over 12,800 bbl of mud today plus 5 separate bridging pills. Tired. Going home and getting ready for round three tomorrow.”

At the time, BP said publicly that the measure had a 70 percent chance of success.

Mix, 50, was arrested in Katy, Texas on April 24. If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 on each of the two counts he is charged with.

by Abrahm Lustgarten, ProPublica, April 24, 2012, 5:16 p.m.

Image Courtesy of   IBRRC

The article Feds File First Criminal Charges Related to BP Gulf Spill appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

After being found liable in Ecuador for creating one of the world’s worst oil disasters, Chevron filed a notice of appeal to Ecuador’s highest court where it seeks special treatment not afforded any other litigant under the nation’s laws — the waiver of a bond required to suspend enforcement of a judgment during the pendency of any appeal.

It would be illegal under Ecuadorian law for the appellate court to grant Chevron’s unusual and unprecedented request to waive the bond requirement, said Pablo Fajardo, the lead attorney for the indigenous and farmer communities who brought suit against the oil giant for the dumping of billions of gallons of toxic waste into the waterways used by several indigenous groups and farmer communities.

“Chevron has every right under the law to seek an extraordinary appeal to the highest court as long as it can cite a proper legal basis,” said Fajardo.  “But Chevron is yet again seeking a special exemption under Ecuadorian law when it claims the bond requirement should not apply to it, while it applies to every other litigant in the country.”

“Chevron behaves in Ecuador as if it is above the law while thousands of people continue to suffer the devastating effects of the company’s toxic contamination,” said Fajardo.  ”This abuse of the judicial process must end.”

For execution of a court judgment in Ecuador to be suspended pending appeal to the highest court — called the National Court of Justice — the losing party must post a bond that is usually calculated at roughly 8% of the amount of damages awarded (roughly $1.5 billion in this case). Chevron is seeking to have enforcement suspended even without posting a bond even though the indigenous and farmer communities continue to suffer grave health effects engendered by the company’s delaying tactics, said Fajardo.

Karen Hinton, the U.S. spokesperson for the Ecuadorians, said in a statement that “for almost two decades, Chevron has stood in the way of a comprehensive cleanup of billions of gallons of crude oil and toxic waste water it deliberately dumped into the pristine rainforest of Ecuador.”

“Thousands of people have died or suffered from illnesses as Chevron and its army of lawyers have waged a campaign to distract attention from the overwhelming scientific evidence against the company,” said Hinton. “Chevron has always believed that Ecuador’s many laws prohibiting environmental contamination should not apply to its misconduct.”

The bond requirement, typical in countries around the world including the U.S., is intended to protect the winning side from unnecessary delays during appellate review.  Ecuador’s first-level appellate court already affirmed the trial court judgment that the company is required to pay $18 billion for a clean-up, a relatively modest amount compared to BP’s estimated $60 billion liability for the smaller Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Fajardo also said that an arbitral order cited by Chevron as justification for its request for a bond waiver is not binding on the rainforest communities as they are not a party to that proceeding, which is held in secret pursuant to a U.S.-Ecuador investment treaty.

In any event, the arbitral panel never ordered — and under the law cannot order — that Ecuador’s courts take steps that would “clearly violate” Ecuador’s Constitution and international treaties binding the government to protect the fundamental human rights of its citizens, including the right to life and the right to seek legal redress in national courts, said Fajardo.  Further, the arbitral panel has never even held an evidentiary hearing on Chevron’s claims that a remediation contract with Ecuador’s government released it from liability.

“We believe Chevron clearly is misinterpreting the scope of authority of the arbitration,” he added. ”We want to reiterate that Chevron has every right to appeal to Ecuador’s National Court of Justice, but it has no right to special treatment during the pendency of the appeal,” Fajardo added.

The trial court decision, issued in February 2011, found that Chevron systematically dumped billions of gallons of toxic waste into the Amazon, poisoning waterways that local inhabitants use for drinking water and causing increased cancer rates. Damages were set at $18 billion.  In 2002, the case was shifted from U.S. federal court to Ecuador at Chevron’s request.

The trial court in Ecuador also repeatedly sanctioned Chevron’s legal team for filing frivolous motions intended to delay the proceedings, and for threatening a judge with jail if he did not rule in favor of the company.  These actions led to a punitive damages award that accounts for roughly half of the total judgment.

Chevron has roughly two more weeks under Ecuadorian law to determine if it will publicly apologize for its misconduct, which would allow it to eliminate the punitive damages component of the award.

As support for the contention that Chevron believes it does have to adhere to the law in Ecuador, Hinton cited a comment in a 60 Minutes interview where Chevron attorney Silvia Garrigo – pressed as to why the company said it would never pay any adverse judgment in Ecuador – said: “We don’t believe we should be in any court, much less the courts of Ecuador.”

The 188-page trial court judgment is undergirded by a wide body of scientific and testimonial evidence submitted during eight years of proceedings that prove Chevron designed a system of oil extraction that deliberately discharged toxic oil waste into the environment to keep production costs to a minimum. Chevron also has been heavily criticized for trying to defraud the Ecuador court and sabotage the proceedings.

In briefs submitted to U.S. and Ecuadorian courts, the rainforest communities submitted evidence that Chevron technicians staked out “clean” spots at contaminated well sites to test prior to court-supervised judicial inspections; sent dirty soil samples to a secret lab to prevent their disclosure to the court; and doctored a “judicial playbook” document so two academic experts in the U.S. would endorse the company’s misleading sampling protocol, among other charges.

A separate ruling by a New York federal appellate court marks Chevron’s third consecutive legal setback in its effort to block enforcement of the Ecuador judgment.

In September, a federal appellate panel blocked Chevron’s attempt to seek an unprecedented worldwide injunction blocking enforcement. In January, a federal district court judge denied Chevron’s illegal attempt to freeze the assets of the plaintiffs. And on January 3, Ecuador’s first-level appellate court confirmed the validity of the trial court judgment.

The article Chevron Claims Special Treatment Under Ecuadorian Law appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

The energy company CronocoPhillips and their Chinese section has not effectively stopped or cleaned up offshore spills in the Bohai Bay, according to China’s Oceanic Agency. The spills, which occurred on June 4 and June 17, releasing approximately 700 barrels of oil into Bohai Bay and 2,500 barrels of mineral oil-based drilling mud onto the seabed, have raised an outcry among environmentalists.

The State Oceanic Administration said its investigation discovered that the company had failed to completely clean up damage from the spills and to ensure leaks would not recur. The agency also ordered the company to halt all gas and oil production in the area off China’s eastern coast, until effective measures are taken to prevent further oil leaks as well as ensure that any remaining spills are completely removed.

It also called for a full environmental impact assessment before production can be resumed. CronocoPhillips said it was drawing up a compliance plan along with its partner in the Bohai Bay, China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC). “Activities that are related to depressurizing the field will continue in a safe and environmentally responsible way,” it said in a statement released by CronocoPhillips at the beginning of September.

CronocoPhillips China holds a 49 percent stake in the venture in the Penglai 19-3 oil field, being its sole operator, with CNOOC holding 51 percent. Both companies have publicly apologized for the incident. Initially, CronocoPhillips reported that the spills have been entirely removed. The company also said the fault causing the leak was sealed and that the situation was basically under control.

Despite the companys reassuring statements, the State Oceanic Administration and the Chinese press clearly expressed its dissatisfaction towards the manner in which the oil giant has handled the problem. The People’s Daily severely criticized the company, saying that CronocoPhillips issued misleading statements over the spills while displaying “indifference” over the harm caused to the environment.

According to the publication, CronocoPhillips strove more to protect its image and did not put enough effort into safeguarding the environment after the spill was made public in early June. “There is a sharp contrast between the company’s sensitivity regarding its image and its indifference to the pollution,” People’s Daily commentator Jiang Hongbing said in unambiguous terms.

“After repeated delays and a series of cover-ups and deceptions, production at the Penglai 19-3 oil field has finally been ordered to stop.” The government also says that the spills spread up to 5,5000 square kilometers(2,124 miles) and may have killed scallops.

CronocoPhillips declared that damage to the marine environment was minimized and that oil traces discovered onshore were not related to the spills but were from fuel in the water. The comments made by the oceanic administration at the beginning of September suggest a clash of opinions over how to handle the seeps.

It is believed that pressure had built up underground due to injections used to help force oil from the wells. The notice issued by China’s Oceanic Agency ordered CronocoPhillips to accept CNOOC’S “strict supervision” in preventing further spills and recently has also threatened to sue the company.

Environmental groups complained about the slow pace of the cleaning operations, while fishermen in Shandong, Hebei and Liaoning provinces claim that oil has killed off most marine life. Another consequence of the incident was a drop in CNOOC’s shares in early September, which fell 8.8 percent in Hong Kong.
Lorraine Kourafas / Shutterstock.com

The article China Says CronocoPhillips Hasn’t Ended Bohai Spill appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

A federal judge on Thursday ruled in favor of Transocean and BP oil, dismissing third-party environmental claims in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill litigation. The judge claimed that the fact that the oil flow has stopped makes those lawsuits irrelevant.

“The injunction at this stage would be useless, as not only is there no ongoing release from the well, but there is also no viable offshore facility from which any release could possibly occur,” U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier wrote. “The Macondo well is dead, and what remains of the Deepwater Horizon vessel is on the ocean floor, where it capsized and sank in 5,000 feet of water.

“Moreover, BP and the agencies comprising the Unified Area Command have been and are cleaning up the Gulf of Mexico. An injury is not redressable by a citizen suit when the injury is already being addressed.”

Federal Judge Barbier is overseeing the massive, consolidated oil spill litigation, which has been divided into “bundles,” based upon the nature of the claims. The D1 bundles were lawsuits filed by third part environmental groups. D1 bundle alleges that the spill caused environmental damages under the Clean Water Act; the Endangered Species Act; the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act; and the Emergency Planning and Community Right-To-Know Act.

More than 100,000 people have filed lawsuits related to the massive deepwater oil spill. Transocean’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, operated by BP, exploded and burned 50 miles off the Louisiana coast on April 20, 2010, killing 11 and setting off the worst oil spill in history. Millions of gallons of oil were spilled in the next 87 days.

Judge Barbier claims that the plaintiffs must prove ongoing violations, which it cannot because the oil is no longer spilling.  ”The fundamental argument is that this is all moot because the well is sealed,” Barbier said.

During the hearing, Ervin Gonzales, of the plaintiff steering committee, said the cleanup has not been adequate and “the environment is suffering.”  Greg Buppert, an attorney for Defenders of Wildlife, told Barbier at the hearing that “the Endangered Species Act is not linked to the well spill; it is linked to the take of species.”

In response, Barbier cited the federal government’s investigation of the spill. Federal attorneys have said that criminal charges will be filed if the investigation turns up evidence of willful negligence by the defendants.  Because of the continuing investigation, the government has tried to keep certain issues undercover. For instance, autopsy results of the hundreds of dead baby dolphins that have washed up along the Gulf Coast have been kept private, and independent scientists have not been allowed to conduct their own autopsies.

Image Courtesy of  http://www.flickr.com/photos/derek_b/

The article Federal Judge Dismisses Lawsuit Against BP appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

Although originally estimated at far less, the dead and dying dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico have continued to grow.  At least 138 dolphins have been found dead this year, nearly half of them newborn or premature calves.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg, scientists say. Many more dolphins are dying in the Gulf than are officially counted. New research released last month suggests that the average number for most species may be 50 times higher than what’s currently being reported.  And that is a conservative estimate according to researchers.  What this means is that just in 2011, more than 6,500 dolphins have died.  For some species of the mammal, that rate is 250 times higher than normal.

The media continues to downplay the environmental impact of the BP oil disaster last year.  The Obama administration is readily handing out offshore drilling permits again and our collective memory has been wiped clean of the months-long disaster that shot millions of oil into the Gulf.   The media and proponents of offshore drilling have pointed to the low numbers of wildlife and mammal mortalities immediately after the spill as a justification for the continued oil presence in the Gulf.  Even though it is nearly a year later, it difficult to conceive of another reason for the dramatically large increase in dolphin deaths.

National Resources Defense Council’s Michael Jasny talked about the dangerous long term effects of the large number of dead dolphins in his blog following the release of the research.  “This frightening math makes determining the provenance of the 130 stranded animals all the more urgent.  As I’ve said before, the dolphin communities that have made their homes in the Gulf’s bays, sounds, and estuaries are small and semi-isolated, and the death of even a few babies can have outsized effects on the group.  The shelf and offshore populations are larger but not vast, and the death of hundreds, let alone thousands, of animals would far exceed the government’s estimate of what they can reasonably sustain. “

A National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration spokeswoman said the agency is looking at the new data, but that it has always pointed out that the true number of dead mammals is much higher than what washes onshore. “We’ve been saying for a long time, a lot of marine mammals die in the ocean that we never will see.”  There are many reasons that the deaths of marine mammals are not readily identified.  Primarily sea mammals this size that die are quickly consumed by other predator fish or sink to the bottom of the ocean.

Identifying a cause of death for the dolphins could potentially take months, even with the what-seems- obvious large oil spill in the background.  Oil exposure can disrupt the reproduction in animals.  However, the increase in deaths could be due to an infectious disease, their mothers’ exposure to unrelated toxins, or a host of other possible explanations.

Whatever the case may be, it seems clear that even though it has been a year since the oil spill—the far-reaching consequences still are not fully known and likely will not for many years.

The article Researchers are Suggesting Much Higher Number of Dolphin Deaths appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

A gulf coast Florida dog was saved from drowning by two dolphins eager to help their land cousin after the dog apparently fell into the water and was unable to get out of a canal.  Cindy Burnett, from Marco Island, FL, said that she accidentally left her gate open and her 11-year old Doberman, Turbo, escaped late one Sunday evening in February.

After discovering her missing dog, Burnett and her sons began the search for him.  “I searched and searched and called his name. I drove through this street at least five or six times,” she said.  The next morning, a neighbor, Sam Dalessandro was stocking his boat when he heard persistent splashing in the nearby canal.  When he looked to see what the commotion was about, he saw Turbo trapped in the canal surrounded by two dolphins.  The good neighbor called 911 and his wife, Audrey Dalessandro jumped in the water to save the dog. Firefighters showed up to help lift Turbo to rescue. Turbo was likely trapped in the canal for about 15 hours.  He was exhausted but was checked out and got a clean bill of health. The dolphins swam away once the dog was safe.

“He was shivering and a lot of distress,” Burnett said.

Burnett credits the dolphins with saving her beloved pooch.  “If he had to tread water all night long, I know he wouldn’t have been able to,” Burnett said.  She stated he could have been trapped for much longer if the dolphins had not been able to get the Dalessandro’s attention.

If it wasn’t for that dolphin, that dog would be in doggie heaven right now because we would have never seen it,” Dalessandro said told WZVN ABC7.

The article Dog Rescued by Dolphins appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.