Big Oil and citizenship

[mac]

More good "Citizen's United" citizenship from those ethical carbon companies that would not lie to you about climate change:

[mac]

They're at it again. An oil spill, from a pipe owned by Plains, fouls 7 miles of California coastline. About the company:

[mac]

I keep reading here about big oil ethics as something other than aan oxymoron. Evidence on the other side continues to amass:

[mrgybe]

Howls of outrage every time a puff of smoke comes from the Richmond refinery which might have a short term impact on a town which relies entirely on that facility for employment and taxes. Or the hyperventilating over a 50,000 gallon spill from an Exxon pipe near the Yellowstone River which was speedily cleaned up by the company. And what about the "crimes" perpetrated by Duke Energy? Shock and rage. Yet not a word when his former employer pours 3 million gallons of pollutants into a Colorado river which are now depositing heavy metals on river beds through CO and into New Mexico. I wonder who will pay for the clean up, fines and compensation to residents and businesses? Let me guess. And who will sternly oversee that clean up? Will the President insist upon a multi-billion dollar trust fund to pay claims, and will he "keep his boot on the throat" of the EPA? Selective outrage.

[mac]

Howls of hyperbole emerge from the extraction industry as mrgybe describes a raging fire due to poor maintenance at the Richmond refinery as a "puff of smoke." Since I have spent some of my career cleaning up Superfund sites, often created by the mineral extraction and pesticide industry that mrgybe pimps for, I have a fundamentally different take on the Gold King Mine spill. To be sure, I left EPA in 1976 because in general they rely on the States to remediate pollution. Like the perhaps half a million abandoned mines in this country. The Colorado Geological Society has identified more than 23,000 abandoned mines in Colorado. The San Francisco Regional Water Quality Control Board has been involved in clean-up from abandoned mines--most notably the New Almaden mine south of San Jose, the largest mercury mine in the country, which left waste mercury all over the landscape and has contaminated fish for a century, with another 50 years of impact despite the best possible clean-up on land that is feasible.

Without a doubt EPA triggered a spill and the conservative pundits have jumped on it. They apply a standard of perfection to government actions of all types--egged on by corporate money. But with thousands of abandoned mines, in rugged territory all across the country, it is inevitable that cleanups will not occur without mistakes and short term impacts.

The Gold King Mine was one of a number of abandoned mines near Silverton Colorado identified as causing ecological damage in about 1990. EPA proposed to list the area as a Superfund site, but the State of Colorado resisted, fearing that listing would interfere with tourism. Many of those mines were leaking high-acid drainage--a common occurrence in abandoned mines--and the Animas River was essentially devoid of any natural stream biota. After 25 years of dancing with the state, EPA began an investigation into the on-going leak in August, intending to install drains and treat the runoff. But their investigation caused a rupture in the downstream earthen ponds, releasing the mine drainage suddenly rather than dribbling out at 200 gallons per minute as it had been.

A reasonably journalistic account--something missing in the e-mails that have triggered conservative outrage to generate political contributions for the GOP--can be found in the Denver Post.

From http://www.denverpost.com/environment/ci_28608746/epas-colorado-mine-disaster-plume-flows-west-toward

[nw30]

mac: "To be sure, I left EPA in 1976 because in general they rely on the States to remediate pollution."

In other words, 'I trust the big federal government much more than the states.'
There are no guarantees with that attitude, the bigger the government, the more things just get passed around, and the slower things get accomplished.
The most important thing to most fed employees, CYA.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gold King Mine spill exposes Obama hypocrisy, threatens EPA credibility, critics say

By Ben Wolfgang - The Washington Times - Monday, August 10, 2015

The political fallout from last week’s toxic spill at Colorado’s Gold King Mine intensified Monday, with critics saying the incident has exposed clear hypocrisy within the Obama administration while threatening the credibility of the Environmental Protection Agency at a crucial moment.

Rather than express outrage as it has done in the wake of previous environmental disasters, the White House would not comment on the spill and instead directed all questions to the embattled EPA.

The agency, meanwhile, remains under intense fire after its contractors accidentally breached a dam at the mine last week and sent toxic sludge flowing into the Animas River. The contaminated water has spread to New Mexico, Arizona and Utah, and EPA officials were forced to concede that more than 3 million gallons were released into the river — a much higher amount than the agency’s initial estimate of 1 million gallons.

The fluid contains lead, arsenic and other heavy metals.

Although not comparable in magnitude, the spill in some ways is reminiscent of BP’s 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, which famously led President Obama to say he was looking for someone’s “ass to kick” in response and prompted Ken Salazar, the interior secretary at the time, to vow to keep his “boot on the neck” of BP.

This time, with a federal agency responsible for the spill, the talk hasn’t been so tough.

Critics say the administration is exercising a clear double standard by failing to demand the kind of accountability — including the firings of those responsible — that it has demanded of private companies.

They also say the EPA has seriously damaged its own credibility by failing to reveal the incident until a day later, and by initially downplaying the size of the spill.

“Their response has been terrible. They’ve hedged the truth, if you will, which puts people in jeopardy because it turns out it’s much worse. They’re doing precisely the sorts of things they level charges at other people for doing,” said Dan Kish, senior vice president for policy at the conservative Institute for Energy Research.

“It’s ironic in a lot of ways because, typically, when big, iconic things happen like this, they spend a huge amount of time trying to throw gasoline on the fire,” Mr. Kish said. “They always tell us they’re right, everybody is wrong. In this particular case, they’ve got their hands full.”

For the rest~
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/aug/10/gold-king-mine-spill-exposes-obama-hypocrisy-threa/

[isobars]

And who's footing the the already seven-figure bill for partially remediating the EPA's blunder? CO and NM. I don't know about CO, but NM is one poor state.

[swchandler]

Mining the Washington Times for stuff to criticize President Obama? How easy is it today to find a twisted story that fulfills and satisfies one's biases? NW30, are you feeling sorry for BP these days? Seemingly, Ben Wolfgang has conveniently forgotten that 11 people died in the BP disaster.

[mac]

NW--you join mrgybe in the fools' corner. EPA had to move to clean up these mines because Colorado had not done enough over the last 25 years. That was what was frustrating about EPA--you had to wait for the State, give them money to build their program, chastise them when they didn't do enough, and then, 25 years later, begin the clean-ups.

To expect cleanups--of the 23,000 sites that industry abandoned-- to happen without mistakes is foolish indeed. But then at least you didn't spend your career, like mrgybe, creating such sites in the first place--and then arguing that they didn't need to be cleaned up.

Remember how the Bushie's did it? Of course, this happened in mrgybe's home state, where Massey coal, led by their head Don Blankenship, made major contributions to the Bush and Republican senatorial funds. It all started with a big coal slurry spill in 2000. Blankenship reportedly bragged that he had bought a member of the Virginia Supreme Court. His influence was sufficient that the chief operating officer of Massey then was appointed to the Mine Safety Board, and Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao, who oversaw the Mining Safety and Health Administration, "put on the brakes" regarding an agency investigation into the spill. McConnell was up to his neck in quashing any penalties for Massey. We all remember (well, not Republicans, they don't read mainstream media) next. 28 Massey employees were killed in 2006 the Upper Big Branch coal mine fire. Mrgybe, pimp for the carbon industry, has the nerve to argue that we should not want to interfere with coal jobs because then carbon executives have to lay people off. Better to kill the workers quickly by hiring Republican politicians to kill safety regulations, and the larger population slowly with unregulated carcinogenic emissions.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/10/us/10westvirginia.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

[mac]

Having trolled, mrgybe moves on and ignores the facts. His recent posts are attempts to create a false narrative that absolves the extraction industry that he represents from responsibility for abandoned mines, and tries to present the coal industry executives as deeply empathetic to their employees rather than callous about their safety. Silence speaks volumes, as does the usual slimy spin.

Exxon would be exonerated from the Yellowstone spill under his theories, and would, through exerting its political muscle, minimize liability for the latest spill to reach final legal decision.