ARCTIC OCEAN OIL REVIEWS SOFT-PEDALED EXXON VALDEZ

[nosmokes]

This is outrageous. Again.Exxon still owes $Millions for the spill that in all probability will never be paid. The Richest Corporation on the Planet and Bushco is giving them a hall pass. Color me Angry.

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original-peer

or Immediate Release: February 13, 2008
Contact: Carol Goldberg [phone]

ARCTIC OCEAN OIL REVIEWS SOFT-PEDALED EXXON VALDEZ

— Oil Spill Dangers to Wildlife Minimized to Keep Lease Sales on Schedule

Washington, DC —Environmental impact assessments used to justify opening vast tracts of Arctic waters in the last six years to oil exploration downplayed the long-term effects of the devastating Exxon Valdez oil spill, according to documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Analyses by Interior Department scientists about the impacts of a large spill on Alaskan fish populations were re-written by non-scientist managers amid concerns that the findings would delay the issuance of new leases.

The 1989 Exxon Valdez tanker spill took place in remote waters of the Prince William Sound where clean-up response was severely limited. That experience would appear to be particularly pertinent to the Bush administration drive to open up the even more remote Bering, Chukchi and Beaufort Seas to oil and gas development. As in Prince William Sound, response to a major Arctic spill would be constrained by location, weather and lack of ready containment equipment and even further hampered by arctic sea ice.

Research published in the last decade shows that the Exxon Valdez spill created long-term harm to fish populations, such as herring and pink salmon, by impairing reproduction, growth, feeding and migratory patterns. Subsistence fishermen and hunters were also negatively affected.

The original 2003 Beaufort Sea Multi-Sale Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the first Bush-era lease sales selectively used studies on the Exxon Valdez spill and did not even consider the actual recovery period of impacted fish populations. Interior management feared that later inclusion of troublesome data would make earlier lease sales legally vulnerable and slow down reviews for proposed leases.

“If Interior admits that its earlier environmental reviews only considered partial information then its whole Alaska Outer Continental Shelf house of cards comes tumbling down” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, noting that the agency touted the comprehensive quality of its EIS in last week’s multi-billion dollar bidding for a Chukchi Sea lease. “How could these supposedly ‘comprehensive’ reviews overlook nearly half a billion dollars of research into the effects of Exxon Valdez?”

Interior sought to keep lease sales on schedule by doing abbreviated Environmental Assessments that tiered off the earlier deficient Multi-Sale EIS. However, if one of these Environmental Assessments were to find a significant adverse impact, then by law, a full EIS would have to be done for that sale, adding months or years to the schedule. Thus, in July 2006, Interior substantially altered the impact analysis of fisheries biologist Jeff Childs for an Environmental Assessment of a proposed Beaufort Sea lease sale. Childs had reported that:

“Based on the information reviewed a large oil spill impacting estuarine or intertidal habitats utilized by capelin or other fishes is likely to result in significant adverse effects on local populations requiring three or more generations to recover. A large oil spill impacting essential fish habitat utilized by early life history stages of pink salmon is likely to result in significant adverse effects on local populations requiring three or more generations to recover to their former status.”

The “significant adverse effects” finding would trigger the need for a full EIS and force a more complete analysis of the effects of oil spills in Arctic waters. Moreover, the significant adverse effects finding would also trigger additional consultation with the national marine Fisheries Services and likely lead to adopting additional mitigation measures to minimize harm to Pacific salmon essential habitat.

In staff meetings, Interior managers repeatedly reminded scientists that the agency had committed to meet the timetable of lease sales agreed to with the oil industry.

“How can Interior say with a straight face that a large oil spill in the Arctic Ocean would not be significant?” asked Ruch, noting that the quality of agency environmental reviews is now the subject of multiple court challenges. “On issue after issue, scientists were warned by Interior managers to avoid reporting any significant adverse impacts from Arctic oil leasing activities regardless of the evidence.”

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complete release including links to related sources here

[Arctic Dave]

1. You can't really be surprised, can you.

Golly, the Bush admin would water down an environmental policy, who woulda thunk. As it now, the oil companies are not allowed to drill during times of ice break up on the North Slope, because they have failed to adequately prove the ability to provide spill response during these periods.
(I mean not being able to drill refers to offshore facilities only)

[Blue_In_AK]

2. No surprise here...

Exxon makes record-setting profits and yet refuses to pay the punitive damages assessed against them for the spill -- even after the damages were cut in half. Obviously, they're just waiting for all the fishermen to die off, and they're now hoping that Alaskans have forgotten the oiled sea birds, dead otters and dwindling fish stock. I know for a fact that the Sound has not fully recovered, and I won't ever forget.

Waking up that Good Friday morning, hearing the news about the EXXON VALDEZ spill and following the news for days afterward is one of those events that lives in my memory like 9/11 and Katrina. Granted, people didn't die, but the environmental damage to this breathtakingly beautiful ecosystem was staggering.

[nosmokes]

3. Oh, I think people did die.

Maybe not that day or that week, but most definitely the native population that was uprooted and scattered to the winds certainly hasn't fared well. And not a single suit spent so much as a minute behind bars.To me, that's almost as large a crime as the spill in the first place. It's certainly an indictment of where and how we place and choose our societal values.I can't imagine what it must've been like to be there during the spill.

[Blue_In_AK]

4. Rather ironically it was the clean-up work

done by Bill Allen's VECO on behalf of Exxon that led to VECO becoming such an influential player here and ultimately resulted in the FBI bribery and corruption investigations of our state legislature, Ted Stevens and Don Young, among others. So not only did Exxon slime Prince William Sound and its beaches, but they also, directly and through VECO, slimed our state government. Up until the election of Sarah Palin in 2006, VECO and Big Oil were basically running things in Juneau. Now, finally, people are starting to wise up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veco_Corp