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oil pollution

ExxonMobil Pipeline Company to Pay Civil Penalty Under Proposed Settlement for Torbert, Louisiana Oil Spill

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Contact:
Jennifer Colaizzi (News Media only)
jennifer.colaizzi@epa.gov
(202) 564-7776

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

August 26, 2014
Settlement Resolves Clean Water Act Violation Stemming from 2012 Spill

WASHINGTON — ExxonMobil Pipeline Company (ExxonMobil) has agreed to pay a civil penalty for an alleged violation of the Clean Water Act stemming from a 2012 crude oil spill from ExxonMobil’s “North Line” pipeline near Torbert, Louisiana, the Department of Justice and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced today.  Under the consent decree lodged today in federal court, ExxonMobil will pay $1,437,120 to resolve the government’s claim.

The United States’ complaint, which was also filed today in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana, alleges that ExxonMobil discharged at least 2,800 barrels (or 117,000 gallons) of crude oil in violation of Section 311 of the Clean Water Act.  On April 28, 2012, ExxonMobil’s 20/22-inch-diamater pipeline ruptured near Torbert, about 20 miles west of Baton Rouge, and crude oil spilled into the surrounding area and flowed into an unnamed tributary connected to Bayou Cholpe.

“All businesses have an obligation to protect their workers, the local community and the environment in which they operate,” said Cynthia Giles, Assistant Administrator for Enforcement and Compliance Assurance at EPA. “EPA is committed to protecting communities by enforcing laws that reduce pollution in local waterways.”

“Oil spills into our nation’s waters endanger public health and the environment and warrant concerted enforcement efforts,” said Sam Hirsch, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division.  “Today’s settlement achieves a just result and furthers our enforcement mission.”

The $1.4 million penalty is in addition to the costs incurred by ExxonMobil to respond to the oil spill and to replace the segment of ruptured pipeline.  ExxonMobil is completing cleanup actions pursuant to an administrative order issued by the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality.  The company also continues to do follow-up work and to operate under a Corrective Action Order issued by the United States Department of Transportation, Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.

The Clean Water Act makes it unlawful to discharge oil or hazardous substances into or upon the navigable waters of the United States or adjoining shorelines in quantities that may be harmful to the environment or public health.  The penalty paid for this spill will be deposited in the federal Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund managed by the National Pollution Fund Center.  The Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund is used to pay for federal response activities and to compensate for damages when there is a discharge or substantial threat of discharge of oil or hazardous substances to waters of the United States or adjoining shorelines.

The proposed consent decree, lodged in the Middle District of Louisiana, is subject to a 30-day public comment period and court review and approval.  A copy of the consent decree is available on the Department of Justice website atwww.justice.gov/enrd/Consent_Decrees.html.

R195

BP Spill, gulf of mexico clean-up, Gulf restoration

E&E: Council issues long-awaited call for restoration projects

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Annie Snider, E&E reporter
Published: Thursday, August 21, 2014
The federal-state panel tasked with spending fines linked to the 2010
Gulf of Mexico oil spill put out a call this afternoon for ecosystem
restoration projects — a critical step in what has been a
frustratingly slow process for many involved.

The guidelines released today by the Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration
Council will be used to select projects for a “Funded Priorities List”
that will be eligible for money from the first tranche of civil fines
related to the spill — roughly $150 million from Transocean Deepwater
Inc. The total amount of money available to the council remains up in
the air as the federal government’s case against BP PLC over Clean
Water Act liability remains ongoing.

The initial selection round will focus on projects targeting habitat
and water quality improvements. It will also emphasize projects that
are aimed at addressing significant ecosystem issues, that are
sustainable over time, that are likely to succeed and that will benefit
the human community, the council said in its guidelines.

“We are excited to announce the start of the project selection process
and look forward to receiving excellent proposals from our Council
members in the coming months,” Justin Ehrenwerth, the council’s
executive director, said in a statement. “The Council adopted a merit-
based process to evaluate and select projects which will put the
Council members in a strong position to move forward with project
implementation.”

The RESTORE Act, passed by Congress more than two years ago, sends 80
percent of civil fines related to the 2010 spill back to the five Gulf
states — Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. That
money is divided into three main pots, one of which, holding 30 percent
of the total funds, is to be managed by the council for Gulfwide
ecosystem restoration.

The initial comprehensive plan approved by the council last year was
supposed to include the Funded Priorities List and a 10-year spending
plan, but the council said it was hamstrung without a long-stalled
regulation from the Treasury Department laying out how the spill money
could be spent.

Treasury last week broke the logjam, approving an interim rule (E&ENews
PM, Aug. 13).

The submission guidelines released today add detail to a fact sheet on
submission released by the council ahead of a Senate hearing last month
(E&E Daily, July 30). Language from the fact sheet that had raised
eyebrows from environmentalists about projects benefiting human
communities at the point of implementation does not appear in the new
guidelines.

Project submissions must also include a list of all applicable
environmental compliance requirements such as permits, an issue that
restoration advocates are keeping a close eye on.

“Getting the project selection process right is so important to
comprehensive Gulf restoration. If we do it correctly, we can create
jobs, conserve fish and wildlife habitat, and save the way of life
we’re privileged to enjoy on the coast,” Bob Bendick, director of the
Nature Conservancy’s Gulf of Mexico program, said in a statement.
“While this is just the beginning of the process, we hope the
procedures announced today will enable the implementation of projects
that allow the Gulf to remain the special place it is and something
we’ll be proud to hand down to our children.”

Only council members — representatives of the five states and the
federal agencies — can submit a project to be considered by the

council.
gulf of mexico clean-up, Gulf restoration

E&E: Interior to update decades-old bonding regs

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Phil Taylor, E&E reporter
Published: Monday, August 18, 2014

The Interior Department late last week announced plans to update 20-
year-old regulations that ensure taxpayers are not left on the hook for
the cost of tearing down abandoned offshore oil and gas facilities.

Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said its existing bonding
regulations for oil and gas development have not kept pace with new
facilities designed to drill in deeper waters and the growing cost to
decommission them.

The agency is giving the public until Oct. 20 to comment on best
practices for mitigating financial risks and whether current bonding
requirements are adequate.

“We would like to work with industry and others to determine how to
improve our regulatory regime to better align with the realities of
aging offshore infrastructure, hazard risks and increasing costs of
decommissioning,” BOEM acting Director Walter Cruickshank said in a
statement.

BOEM said the costs of decommissioning offshore rigs have “dramatically
increased” since the last bonding regulations were developed nearly a
quarter-century ago.

At that time, the biggest financial risk the government faced in
selling oil and gas leases was nonpayment of rents and royalties,
noncompliance with laws and regulations, and potential problems due to
bankruptcy, BOEM said.

Currently, operators must pay a base bond of $50,000 per lease prior to
development. Bonds rise to $200,000 per lease for exploration and
$500,000 for production. Operators also can post bonds for an area of
leases, which start at $1 million for exploration and $3 million for
production.

While BOEM may require additional financial assurances for
decommissioning, the agency exercises this authority about 10 percent
of the time.

Reducing financial risks is complicated by the 40- to 50-year life span
of many offshore drilling projects, BOEM said. New and unexpected
technological or financial challenges may necessitate new financial
assurances as projects evolve, it said.

“BOEM is specifically interested in comments regarding the financial
risks and liabilities associated with aging offshore infrastructure,
deepwater decommissioning, subsea decommissioning, pipeline
abandonment, Arctic operations, and new technologies designed to
address deepwater development or exploration and/or development of
energy or mineral resources in locations with unusually adverse
conditions,” the agency said in a Federal Register notice today.

The new rulemaking will not address the costs and damages associated
with oil spill financial responsibility, which are covered elsewhere in
BOEM’s regulations.

As of the beginning of this year, Interior’s Bureau of Safety and
Environmental Enforcement counted 1,583 abandoned wells and 374 idle
platforms waiting for decommissioning, a major drop from the 3,233
abandoned wells and 617 unused structures BOEM found in need of removal
in late 2010 (EnergyWire, March 12).

Federal regulations require offshore energy companies to remove all
material used for oil and gas extraction in the Gulf as soon as their
activities are completed at lease sites.

Interior last summer announced a new policy that will make it easier
for oil and gas companies to allow obsolete rigs in the Gulf of Mexico
to be used as habitat for fish. It drew support from operators that
stand to save on the cost of decommissioning the hulking steel
structures as well as recreational fishing groups that argue the rigs
provide important hiding and hunting grounds for fish in the Gulf,
whose muddy bottom is generally inhospitable to reefs (Greenwire, June
27, 2013).

But some environmentalists and scientists argue companies have abused
Interior’s “rigs to reefs” program to avoid the cost of
decommissioning, threatening to turn the Gulf into an oil and gas

“junkyard” (Greenwire, July 31).
energy policy, fossil fuels, fracking

Progress Florida: Ban Risky Oil and Gas Fracking in Florida

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I just wanted to share with you a column I wrote that was published at Context Florida regarding the need to ban risky oil and gas fracking in Florida.

The threat to Florida from fracking is especially worrisome as long as Gov. Rick Scott is in office. The last thing Florida needs, with our delicate ecology and vast underground aquifer system, is oil and gas fracking. After you’ve had a chance to read the column, please consider a contribution to Progress Florida so we can continue the fight against fracking statewide.

Thanks for reading.

Mark Ferrulo, Progress Florida

 

To protect Florida’s future, ban fracking

Imagine a future where Florida’s soil and air are contaminated, iconic endangered species like the Florida panther are lost forever and our drinking water is poisoned. Unfortunately it could happen — if we don’t put a stop to new oil and gas extraction process known as acid fracking.

There are many environmental and public health concerns linked to fracking. More than 1,000 cases of water contamination have been documented near fracking sites as well as sensory, respiratory, and neurological problems. Gas that is leaked during the fracking process, along with the numerous toxic chemicals that are used, creates air pollution, contributes to global warming and is a danger to human health.

Inexplicably, Gov. Rick Scott stated in 2011 that he supports oil and gas drilling in the Everglades. And just last month, he was slapped with an ethics complaint alleging a conflict of interest for his investment in a company that is drilling near the Everglades.

Scott’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) hid Dan A. Hughes Co.’s illegal Everglades fracking from the public for months, and to this day the company has failed to disclose exactly what they’ve been pumping into our ground to extract fossil fuels, citing industry “trade secrets.” The Florida DEP’s initial punishment amounted to a $25,000 slap on the wrist fine. Just as alarming, over the past five years the DEP has not denied a single drilling permit but has approved more than 40.

Despite the Scott administration’s weak response to illegal fracking, concerned Floridians and citizens groups, including the Conservancy of Southwest Florida, Preserve Our Paradise, and the Stonecrab Alliance, are fighting back, and it’s working.

It took a massive public outcry, but the Florida DEP finally discovered what the “E” and the “P” mean in their acronym and revoked the Hughes Co. permit more than six months after the Texas-based company undertook its unauthorized fracking.

On July 15, Hughes Co. announced that it would suspend drilling at the so-called Collier Hogan well, site of the fracking incident. And although Hughes may still face further action from the DEP, some lawmakers have begun pushing for tougher regulations on the oil and gas industry, including a statewide ban on fracking.

A moratorium on fracking in Florida makes sense. There is great uncertainty about the effect of fracking on the environment and public health. Those concerns are magnified in Florida because of our unique ecology and hydrology. Moreover, it has become clear that Floridians can’t count on the Scott administration to put the public’s health and safety above the interests of bad corporate actors like Hughes Co.

The Hughes Co.’s suspension of oil extraction activities in the Everglades amounts to only a partial victory for Floridians. The threat fracking poses to Florida remains, especially while Scott is in office. Given its location in the Everglades and the potential harm drilling may do to South Florida’s drinking water supply, Hughes’ permit should never have been approved.

State lawmakers who cherish Florida’s natural treasures and the health of their constituents should pass a statewide ban on all fracking-like drilling during the 2015 legislative session. Meanwhile, the Scott administration should suspend permitting on all fracking-like drilling projects.

If these policymakers don’t care about protecting wilderness, wildlife or public health, maybe the fact that the health of our economy is inextricably linked to the health of our environment will convince them to do the right thing.

Special thanks to Mark Ferrulo,  Progress Florida

energy policy, gulf of mexico clean-up, Gulf restoration

DECOM WORLD: Group launches campaign to scrap Rigs to Reefs programs in Gulf of Mexico

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By Rod Sweet on Aug 6, 2014

Operators hoping to cut decommissioning costs by reefing rigs in the Gulf of Mexico may have a fight on their hands now that a campaign has been launched by a diverse group including shrimp fishermen and conservationists to have the Rigs to Reefs program scrapped.

Twenty-three individuals, among them university professors and people representing conservation groups, fishermen and tribal organizations, are signatories to a 23 July letter to US Interior Secretary Sally Jewell asking her department to require operators to remove rigs instead of converting them to reefs.

They were joined on 30 July by Clint Guidry, president of the Louisiana Shrimp Association, who told New Orleans’ Times-Picayune newspaper that the oil industry should return the Gulf sea floor to “trawlable bottoms”.

The campaign coincides with the publication last month of a new book entitled “Bring Back the Gulf”. Its authors, Richard Charter, senior fellow of the Ocean Foundation, and DeeVon Quirolo, a marine conservation consultant based in Florida, argue that there is no scientific consensus that reefed platforms and jackets contribute to maintaining fish stocks “or otherwise achieve overarching fisheries management goals”.

“Instead,” they write, “these artificial underwater structures aggregate fish, thereby contributing to over-fishing. It also is apparent that they fail to equal or rival natural coral reefs in biological diversity.”

The campaign will put pressure on BSEE, which last July expanded the scope for reefing rigs by removing the requirement for a five-mile buffer zone between designated reefing areas in the Gulf and by easing certain other restrictions on reefing rigs in place.

Around 450 platforms in the Gulf have been converted to reefs through state reefing programs since 1985. More than 300 of these are in Louisiana waters. Some environmental groups have contended that artificial reefs just attract more fish without promoting balanced habitats, thereby doing more harm than good.

The 23 July letter, signed also by authors Charter and Quirolo, urges Interior Secretary Sally Jewell to effect “strong and consistent implementation of the Department of Interior’s Idle Iron policy requiring full decommissioning of spent oil and gas structures at the end of their useful economic life.”

The letter adds: “The permanent seabed placement of obsolete oil and gas extraction infrastructure invites more ecosystem damage rather than restoring it as originally envisioned.”

The Louisiana Shrimp Association’s Clint Guidry also called for the complete removal of platforms, saying it would “help all users who have to navigate the Gulf”. Shrimpers have opposed artificial reefs because they can tangle their nets.

Signing the 23 July letter to Sally Jewell were:

  • Richard Charter, Senior Fellow, The Ocean Foundation, Washington DC
  • DeeVon Quirolo, Marine Conservation Consultant, Brooksville, Florida
  • Athan Manuel, Director, Lands Protection Program Sierra Club, Washington DC
  • Robert W. Hastings, Chair, Alabama Chapter of the Sierra Club
  • Cynthia Sarthou, Executive Director, Gulf Restoration Network, New Orleans
  • Miyoko Sakashita, Oceans Director, Center for Biological Diversity, San Francisco
  • John Hocevar, Oceans Campaign Director, Greenpeace USA
  • Gary Appleson, Policy Coordinator, Sea Turtle Conservancy, Gainesville, Florida
  • Meredith Dowling, Gulf Program Director, Southwings Gulf Office
  • George Barisich, President, United Commercial Fishermen’s Association, Louisiana
  • John W. Day, Jr., Distinguished Professor, Dept. of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences and Coastal Ecology Institute, School of the Coast & Environment Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge
  • Len Bahr, Ph.D. LaCoastPost.com Homer Hitt Alumni Center, New Orleans
  • John McManus, Professor, Department of Marine Biology and Ecology, University of Miami
  • Stephen Bradberry, Executive Director, Alliance Institute, New Orleans
  • Michael Tritico, President, RESTORE Trust, Louisiana
  • Robert G. Bea, Professor Emeritus, Center for Catastrophic Risk Management, University of California Berkeley
  • Luiz Rodrigues, Executive Director, Environmental Coalition of Miami Beach
  • Colette Pichon Battle, Director/Attorney, Gulf Coast Center for Law & Policy, Slidell, Louisiana
  • Dede Shelton, Executive Director, Hands Across the Sand, Meridian, Idaho
  • Michael Stocker, Director, Ocean Conservation Research, Lagunitas, California
  • Kathi Koontz, Ocean Consultant, Berkeley, CA
  • Delice Calcote, Executive Director, Alaska Inter-Tribal Council, Anchorage

The letter to Sally Jewell and the book, “Bring Back the Gulf”, can be downloaded here.

– See more at: http://social.decomworld.com/regulation-and-policy/group-launches-campaign-scrap-rigs-reefs-programs-gulf-mexico