Print This Story E-mail This Story
What do you think? The t r u t h o u t Town Meeting is in progress. Join
the debate!
GOP Again Bids to Take ANWR
By Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t | Report
Thursday 16 March 2006
The Senate is prepared to vote on a budget bill Thursday that
includes a measure to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to
drilling - just as the region suffers through one of the worst oil spills
in history.
The provision to permit drilling in ANWR was included in a resolution
passed last week by the Senate Budget Committee. The full Senate is
expected to vote on the issue as early as Thursday.
The measure was prepared by the Republican-controlled Senate in such
a way that it would be protected from a filibuster by Senate Democrats
opposed to the issue. Drilling in ANWR has been debated at least half a
dozen times over the past five years.
The issue is one of the cornerstones of President Bush's National
Energy Policy. Bush has said that drilling in ANWR is crucial in order
for the United States to cut its dependence on foreign oil.
Environmentalists and numerous lawmakers have derided the plan,
saying it would lead to the destruction of caribou and other wildlife
that live in the refuge. Moreover, severe safety and technological issues
have plagued the big oil companies that drill in nearby Prudhoe Bay and
who would be responsible for breaking ground in ANWR should the Senate
measure pass.
Because the companies have yet to take measures to address the safety
issues at their Prudhoe Bay operations and make much-needed technological
upgrades, there have been dozens of oil spills in the area. The situation
would likely become even worse if ANWR were to be opened up to
exploration, according to environmental officials and activist groups.
Just two weeks ago, the worst spill in the history of oil development
in Alaska's North Slope forced the closure of five oil processing centers
in the region. Alaskan state officials said that as much as 260,000
gallons of crude oil leaking out of a pipeline in an oil field jointly
owned by Exxon Mobil, BP Plc and ConocoPhillips blanketed two acres of
frozen tundra near Prudhoe Bay - just a short distance from where
President Bush has proposed opening up ANWR to drilling.
The oil spill went undetected for about five days before an oilfield
worker detected the scent of hydrocarbons during a drive through the area
on March 2 that led him to believe there was a spill from one of the
facilities.
It's expected that last week's spill will take a crew of 60 at least
two weeks to clean up and to restore crude production to pre-spill
levels. The petroleum processing centers will remain closed until then.
The spill underscores the hazards of drilling in the Arctic, despite
the fact that oil company executives have downplayed the severity of the
technological problems likely to be associated with it.
Last year, unbeknownst to the federal lawmakers who debated the
merits of drilling in ANWR, the Alaska Department of Environmental
Conservation started laying the groundwork to pursue civil charges
against BP and the corporation's drilling contractor for failing to
report massive oil spills at its Prudhoe Bay operation, located just 60
miles west of ANWR.
Despite those dire warnings, neither Congress nor the Senate has
shown interest in investigating the whistleblowers' claims or held
hearings about the potential problems that could result from drilling in
ANWR.
But BP employees have warned lawmakers that oil spills like the one
that took place a couple of weeks ago could happen in ANWR if upgrades
aren't made to the oil companies' drilling equipment.
In March of 2002, a BP whistleblower went public with his claims of
maintenance backlogs and employee shortages at BP's Prudhoe Bay
operations that he said could become even worse if ANWR is opened up to
exploration.
The whistleblower, Robert Brian, who worked as an instrument
technician at Prudhoe Bay for 22 years, had a lengthy meeting with aides
to Senators Joseph Lieberman and Bob Graham, both Democrats, to discuss
his claims. But the senators have never followed up on his claims.
At the time, Brian said he supported opening up ANWR to oil
exploration but said BP has imperiled that goal because it is "putting
Prudhoe workers and the environment at risk."
"We are trying to change that so we don't have a catastrophe that
ends up on CNN and stops us from getting into ANWR," he said, according
to a March 13, 2002, report in the Anchorage Daily News.
BP has long been criticized for poorly managing the North Slope's
aging pipelines, safety valves and other critical components of its oil
production infrastructure.
The company has in the past made minor improvements to its valves and
fire detection systems and hired additional employees but has dropped the
ball and neglected to maintain a level of safety at its facilities on the
North Slope.
Chuck Hamel, a highly regarded activist who is credited with exposing
dozens of oil spills and the subsequent cover-ups related to BP's shoddy
operations at Prudhoe Bay, sent a letter to Senator Pete Domenici (R-NM)
on April 15, 2005, saying the senator was duped by oil executives and
state officials during a recent visit to Alaska's North Slope.
"You obviously are unaware of the cheating by some producers and
drilling companies," Hamel said in the letter to Domenici, an arch
proponent of drilling in ANWR. "Your official Senate tour" of Alaska last
March "was masked by the orchestrated 'dog and pony show' provided you at
the new Alpine Field, away from the real world of the Slope's dangerously
unregulated operations."
Back in the 1980s, Hamel was the first person to expose weak
pollution laws at the Valdez tanker port as well as electrical and
maintenance problems with the trans-Alaska oil pipeline.
Hamel has said that not only do oil spills continue on the North
Slope because BP neglects to address maintenance issues, but the oil
behemoth's executives have routinely lied to Alaskan state
representatives and members of the United States Senate and Congress
about the steps they're taking to correct the problems.
Hamel has obtained some damning evidence on BP to back up his claims.
He has photographs showing oil wells spewing a brown substance known as
drilling mud, which contain traces of crude oil, on two separate
occasions.
Hamel says he's determined to expose BP's shoddy operations and throw
a wrench in President Bush's plans to open up ANWR to drilling.
"Contrary to what President Bush has been saying, the current BP
Prudhoe Bay operations - particularly the dysfunctional safety valves -
are deeply flawed and place the environment, the safety of the operations
staff and the integrity of the facility at risk. The president should
delay legislation calling for drilling at the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge," Hamel told the Wall Street Journal last year.
In April of 2001, whistleblowers informed Hamel and former Interior
Secretary Gale Norton, who at the time was touring the Prudhoe Bay oil
fields, that the safety valves at Prudhoe Bay, which kick in in the event
of a pipeline rupture, failed to close. Secondary valves that connect the
oil platforms with processing plants also failed to close. And, because
the technology at Prudhoe Bay would be duplicated at ANWR, the potential
for a massive explosion and huge spills are very real.
"A major spill or fire at one of our [processing centers] will exit
the piping at high pressure, and leave a half-mile-wide oil slick on the
white snow all the way," Hamel said at the time in an interview with the
Wall Street Journal.
That year, the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission found high
failure rates on some Prudhoe wellhead safety valves. The company was put
on federal criminal probation after one of its contractors dumped
thousands of gallons of toxic material underground at BP's Endicott oil
field in the 1990s. BP pleaded guilty to the charges in 2000 and paid a
$6.5 million fine, and agreed to set up a nationwide environmental
management program that has cost more than $20 million.
Hamel also claimed that whistleblowers had told of another cover-up,
dating back to 2003, in which Pioneer Natural Resources and its drilling
contractor, Nabors Alaska Drilling, allegedly disposed of more than 2,000
gallons of toxic drilling mud and fluids through the ice "to save the
cost of proper disposal on shore."
Hamel has had his share of detractors, notably BP executives and
several Alaskan state officials, as well as the federal EPA, who have
branded him a conspiracy theorist.
But last March, Hamel was vindicated when Alaska's Department of
Environmental Conservation confirmed his claims of major spills in
December 2004 and July 2003 at the oil well owned by BP and operated by
its drilling contractor, Nabors, on the North Slope, which the company
had never reported as required by state law.
Hamel filed a formal complaint in January 2005 with the EPA, claiming
he had pictures showing a gusher spewing a brown substance. An
investigation by Alaska's Department of Environmental Conservation
determined that as much as 294 gallons of drilling mud was spilled when
gas was sucked into wells, causing sprays of drilling mud and oil that
shot up as high as 85 feet into the air.
Because both spills exceeded 55 gallons, BP and Nabors were obligated
under a 2003 compliance agreement that BP signed with Alaska to
immediately report the spills. That didn't occur, said Leslie Pearson,
the agency's spill prevention and emergency response manager.
President Bush has said that the oil and gas industry can open up
ANWR without damaging the environment or displacing wildlife. But the
native Gwich'in Nation, whose 7,000 members have lived in Alaska for more
than 20,000 years, say President Bush is wrong.
"Existing oil development has displaced caribou, polluted the air and
water and created havoc with the traditional lifestyles of the people,"
said Jonathan Solomon, chairman of the Gwich'in Steering Committee, in a
May 7, 2005, interview with the Financial Times. "No one can tell us that
opening the Arctic Refuge to development can be done in an
environmentally sensitive way with a small footprint. It cannot be done."
Jason Leopold spent two years covering California's electricity
crisis as Los Angeles bureau chief of Dow Jones Newswires. Jason has
spent the last year cultivating sources close to the CIA leak
investigation, and is a regular contributor to t r u t h o u t.
-------
Jump to today's TO Features:
Today's TO Features -------------- US Launches Largest Air Strike Since
Invasion William Fisher | How to Lose Friends and Encourage Extremists UN
Creates New Human Rights Watch Dog Over US Opposition Tom Harkin | Why I
Fully Support Bush Censure GOP Seeks Curbs on "527" Restrictions to
Lobbying Reform Robert Dreyfuss | Civil War Is Here Halliburton Failed to
Protect US Troops' Water Mr. Jaafari Refuses to Negotiate With the
Terrorists Military Lawyers Say Agressive Tactics Broke Rules Jason
Leopold | GOP Again Bids to Take ANWR President Reaffirms Pre-emptive War
Doctrine US Assault Deadly for Iraqi Civilians Orville Schell | Baghdad:
The Besieged Press Justice Ginsburg Reveals Details of Death Threats
Katrina Probe Won't Subpoena White House Raising a Million Voices for
Darfur Norman Solomon | War-Loving Pundits March to New Orleans to
Protest Iraq War NOW | Government Secrecy H&R Block Charged With Fraud
-------------- t r u t h o u t Town Meeting t r u t h o u t Home
Print This Story E-mail This Story
© : t r u t h o u t 2006
| t r u t h o u t | town meeting | issues | environment | labor | women |
health | voter rights | multimedia | donate | contact | subscribe | rss
feed |
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Sign up to receive Sierra Club Insider, the flagship
e-newsletter. Sent out twice a month, it features the Club's
latest news and activities. Subscribe and view recent
editions at http://www.sierraclub.org/insider/
|
