A Fish(y) Story
Note: If you are a frequent visitor here, you know how much work Diana puts into her comments. We will try to give them more exposure going forward by posting them on their own. Here’s the first comment elevated to a “post”:
A FISH STORY – A CONNECTION BETWEEN THE CARNEGIE LAWSUIT AND THE DEEPWATER HORIZON DRILLING PLATFORM IN THE GULF OF MEXICO
A New York Times article entitled Crisis Focus on Beleaguered Agencies Chief dated May 26 2010 discloses a connection between S. Elizabeth Birnbaum, director of the Mineral Management Service (MMS) ensured with ensuring the safety and environmental security of offshore rigs and Paula Dinerstein, senior counsel for the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/26/us/politics/26birnbaum.html
PEER, as we all remember, is a plaintiff in the lawsuit which attempted to shut down Carnegie due to off road riding which they alleged caused heavy metal contamination in a normally dry creek bed resulting in the death of nonexistent fish. The Deepwater Drilling platform explosion in the Gulf of Mexico which is spewing estimates of from between10,000 to 75,000 barrels of oil a day into the Gulf has caused the decimation of an entire commercial fishing industry. Do you get the irony?
The following is taken from the article.
“Agency scientists and other employees complained that since taking the post in July, Ms. Birnbaum has done almost nothing to fix problems that have plagued the minerals agency for over a decade. She rarely visited the agency’s far-flung offices, so few staff members have ever seen her. ..
In her testimony, Ms. Birnbaum expressed regrets about the loss of life and damage to the environment from the disaster. ….
Before she took the job at the minerals agency, Ms. Birnbaum, 52, had virtually no experience with the oil and gas industry, but that was seen as a plus, according to a top Interior Department official.” (At least unlike others in charge of overseeing BP operations in the Gulf she had not previously worked for BP, See http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/26/us/politics/26energy.html ) “She worked at the Interior Department in the last year two years of the Clinton administration on natural resource issues, leaving as an associate solicitor in 2001 to become a top lawyer and advocate for American Rivers, a conservation organization.
Ms. Birnbaum had never supervised more than a few dozen people, and the problems at the agency were daunting… Investigations found that some employees at the minerals service literally got into bed with oil industry representatives, accepted lavish gifts from them and allowed companies to fill out their own inspection reports.” For more information See
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/us/25mms.html?pagewanted=1
“Those who know Ms. Birnbaum said they were puzzled that she failed to make a public push to fix these problems.
“We sent her a couple of letters and basically got nonresponses,” said Paula Dinerstein, senior counsel for the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), who knew Ms. Birnbaum before she was appointed. “We were disappointed that she wasn’t going in and trying to right the wrongs of the past.”
Agency employees have echoed this view, saying Ms. Birnbaum has done virtually nothing to address the problems…”
Paula Dinersein, who knew Ms. Birnbuam before she was appointed to the agency in charge of ensuring the safety of the deepwater drilling operations was “disappointed” because Ms. Birnbaum did not respond to her letters. I ask you, is that any way to treat a friend?
I have another question to ponder. Why did we have three environmental impact reports prepared and we still can’t ride on land we own when deep water drilling projects such as Horizon received a waiver from the requirement to produce environmental impact reports contrary to the spirit and law of National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)? In fact since the explosion of Deepwater Horizon, federal regulators have granted at least 19 environmental waivers for Gulf drilling projects, and at least 17 drilling permits most of which were for the type of work like that of the Deepwater Horizon at the time it exploded. See
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/24/us/24moratorium.html
Obviously our mistake is failing to send lobbyists to Sacramento and not sending off road enthusiasts to work for the California Environmental Protection Agency. Anybody willing to volunteer? Come on Dave, Gunnar, Pete, Mark, Jason, Hamid, anybody?
Birnbaum just got pushed out and resigned:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/27/AR2010052703302.html
Thanks for the link Janelle.
A FISH(Y) STORY: THE PLOT SICKENS.
“Ms. Birnbaum resigned “on her own terms and on her own volition,” Mr. Salazar said at a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing she had been scheduled to attend. He said she had helped change the agency but “we still have a lot more work to do.”
To paraphrase the above quote taken from an article in the New YorkTimes; Interior Secretary, Ken Salazar, allows Elizabeth Birnbaum, director of the Minerals Management Service (MMS) to resign without career debilitating consequences, basically saying “Heck of a job Brownie”
The Times article goes on to state “Liz Birnbaum has been made a scapegoat for much deeper dysfunctions at the Interior Department, said Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). The department needs to start appointing serious reformers who are steeped in the issues” not well-meaning people with no experience like Ms. Birnbaum”, he said.
It appears that PEER’s executive director, Jeff Ruch, is defending his friend and fellow environmental crusader Elizabeth Birnbaum. As director of the Mineral Management Service, she was entrusted with ensuring the safety and environmental security of offshore rigs. He contends that she was made a “scapegoat”. This “well meaning person” is not responsible for the Horizon Deepwater environmental disaster because she was “not steeped in the issues”, i.e., she merely lacked experience to paraphrase PEER. As head of MMS shouldn’t she have made it her business to become “steeped in the issues”?
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/28/us/28birnbaum.html
How about this suggestion: The blame should start at the top with the removal of Ken Salazar, head of the Interior Department?
Here’s another suggestion. Rather than defending his colleague, Ms. Birnbaum, and excusing her actions and lack thereof, Jeff Ruch of PEER should join our outrage against the destruction of the entire fishing industry in the Gulf of Mexico, and possibly elsewhere. In addition, PEER should heed its own advice and rid itself of “well meaning” individuals who are not “steeped in the issues”. They should visit Carnegie for themselves rather than relying on so called experts brought in by Mark Connelly and friends, admit that the threat to non-existent fish in Corral Canyon Creek is totally unjustified, and dismiss their lawsuit against the State. But don’t hold your breath.
THOSE WHO IGNORE HISTORY ARE DOOMED TO REPEAT IT
A New York Times article entitled In BP’s Record, a History of Boldness and Blunders – Despite Crises and Near Misses, Little Solid Evidence of Change of Practices, describes how BP has a history of taking too many risks and cutting corners in pursuit of growth and profit. shttp://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/13/business/energy-environment/13bprisk.html. Was S. Elizabeth Birnbaum so inept that she was unaware of BP’s history? She was not “steeped in the issues”, and allowed BP to conduct deepwater drilling without any oversight, based on BP’s assurances that their operation was safe.
The Times article notes that after Hurricane Dennis had come and gone, on July 11, 2005 a passing ship spotted Thunder Horse, BP’s one billion dollar oil platform, in the Gulf of Mexico listing precariously to the side. A valve installed backwards allowed the vessel to flood and it was later discovered that a shoddy welding job left underwater pipelines brittle and full of cracks.
After BP acquired Amaco they took over the operation of The Texas City Plant which was America’s second largest refinery. “The facility built in 1934 was poorly maintained and long starved for capital investments.” On March 23, 2005 15 people died and as many as 170 were injured when a huge fire and explosion racked Texas City, the worst industrial accident in a generation. The government found more than 300 safety violations and BP paid a record 21 million in fines.
A year later 267,000 gallons of oil leaked from Bp’s network of pipelines into Prudhoe Bay Alaska. Again it was found that this disaster was preventable. Investigators found widespread corrosion in several miles of under-maintained and poorly inspected pipes.
A preliminary finding by the house Energy and Commerce Committee found that the Deepwater Horizon accident was caused because, “it appears that BP repeatedly chose risky procedures in order to reduce costs and save time and made minimal efforts to contain the added risks”. The story doesn’t end there. In May of 2010 a power failure caused 5,000 barrels of oil to leak from the Trans Alaska Pipeline system, principally managed by BP.
When is it going to stop? Ms. Birnbaum is no longer in charge and the Mineral Management Service has a new name, but there seems to be no end to BP’s environmental disasters in the pursuit of big profits for its shareholders, and very little oversight by our Interior Department. Ken Salazer seems to be more interested in keeping the public out of public lands than in assuring their safety and protecting the environment.
BLAME FOR BP DISASTER DIRECTED AT INTERIOR DEPARTMENT, BP, CONGRESS AND ENVIRONMENTALISTS
There is a connection between S. Elizabeth Birnbaum, director of the Mineral Management Service (MMS) ensured with ensuring the safety and environmental security of offshore rigs and Paula Dinerstein, senior counsel for the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). They come from similar environmental groups and are friends.
In a New York Times editorial entitled A Disaster Congress Voted For, David Abraham argues that even though BP and the Interior Department with its inadequate regulations are to blame for the Gulf oil spill, much of the blame should be directed at Congress who did not debate regulatory safety of the wells since the 1990s, and when it did lawmakers focused on to how to drill for more oil which meant more jobs and more federal revenue for pet projects.
In order to encourage more deep well drilling they reduced royalties twice. “And in a sign how money had influenced and distorted the debate…the Louisiana Congressional delegation…backed expanded offshore drilling to pay for coastal damage caused by oil and gas operations”. At the same time Congress gutted oversight.
The editorial goes on to blame environmentalists for the spill. They were far more interested in maintaining exploration moratoriums than in safety of ongoing activity. This focus allowed the Interior Department to cater to oil companies. The Interior Department became the industry cheerleader. The head of the department’s off shore drilling boasted about how he oversaw a 50% rise in production. This seems hardly appropriate for the head of a regulatory agency.
Environmental groups have used the spill to push for a ban on offshore drilling. Mr. Abraham sees this as misguided because it would result in offshore drilling going to countries with far weaker environmental standards and require shipping more oil, increasing the likelihood of more spills globally.
KEN SALAZAR AND THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION
ARE NO FRIENDS OF THE PEOPLE
Is Ken Salazar really protecting public lands from exploitation or is that just an excuse for his actions? As Obamas’ head of the Department of the Interior, Ken Salazar is promoting policies that protect the interests of the large corporations.
An ATS investigative report on the Killing of the Mustangs entitled BP Killing Off Horses On Public Land To Get Oil Leases, reveals the real reason that Salazar made the decision to drive the horses from Federal BLM lands in Nevada was so BP could install an oil pipeline.
That is not what he said in the New York Times opinion section where he observed that; “wild horse populations have grown beyond the carrying capacity of the sensitive and sparse lands on which they live, causing damage to ecosystems and putting them at risk of starvation. As a result, federal managers must move thousands of wild horses each year off the range to pastures and corrals, where they are fed, cared for and put up for adoption.”
The roundup was to include horses from five federally managed areas in the Calico Mountains complex. According to Salazar a September count showed more than 3,040 wild horses were living in the area, about three times the land’s capacity. That is about three thousand horses on half a million acres. These horses were protected under statute, Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971, which established new federal protections for the animals, but that didn’t prevent him from ordering that they be removed.
The report discusses how environmentalists put together a trail of documents showing that the Federal Government had other motives to drive the horses off Federal Lands. The decision was made during the course of discussions about the installation of a BP oil pipeline on the Federal Lands called the Ruby pipeline. See: http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/2010/07/13/bp-killing-horses-public-land-oil-leases/
In another unrelated investigative report the U.S. Interior Department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) found wrongdoing in the relationships between certain National Landscaping Conservation System (NLCS) employees of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and anti-access groups.
The OIG alleged that NLCS staff member asked a representative of the National Wildlife Federation to influence legislation before Congress involving protection for some areas in New Mexico. Federal law bars federal employees from trying to shape legislation. The NLCS staff helped the NWF edit a brochure that may have been used for lobbying and disclosed BLM budget information before it was presented to Congress.
The NLCS legislation that made it a permanent agency within the BLM was S. 22, the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009. It was fast-tracked through Congress and then signed into law by President Obama on March 30, 2009. The AMA opposed this bill because it would close over 2 million acres of public land to responsible OHV users, and because the legislative process didn’t allow for full public comment and debate.
To read the full investigative report, click:
• http://www.americanmotorcyclist.com/legisltn/documents/nlcs_bishop_roi_redacted_092909_final.pdf
Ken Salazar came under fire after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig of April 20th of this year. But the New York Times in an article entitled Gulf of Mexico has long Been a Dumping Site, it was revealed that there has been a long history of neglect. “Runoff and waste from cornfields, sewage plants, golf courses and oil-stained parking lots drain into the Mississippi River from vast swaths of the United States, and then flow down to the gulf, creating a zone of lifeless water the size of Lake Ontario just off the coast of Louisiana…
The gulf’s floor is littered with bombs, chemical weapons and other ordnance dumped in the middle of last century, even in areas busy with drilling, and miles outside of designated dumping zones, according to experts who work on deepwater hazard surveys…
Even the coast itself — overdeveloped, strip-mined and battered by storms — is falling apart. The wildlife-rich coastal wetlands of Louisiana sliced up and drastically engineered for oil and gas exploration, shipping and flood control, have lost an area larger than Delaware since 1930…
The nitrogen discharged into the Mississippi — 1.5 million tons of it yearly, from fertilizer (a lot from ethanol production), as well as urban runoff and sewage plants — creates a feeding frenzy among the phytoplankton when it enters the gulf. When the phytoplankton decompose, oxygen in the water is reduced so significantly that little life can exist…
That man-made area of dead water, called a hypoxic zone, is second in size only to a similar zone in the Baltic Sea. And its source, for the most part, is in states hundreds of miles from the gulf.”
This article points to long standing problems that have never been addressed; not by past administrations or this administration. See: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/30/us/30gulf.html Meanwhile the Obama Administration is protecting public lands from public recreation that its lobbyists don’t approve of.
There is the Obama Administrations plan to designate thirteen million acres for National Monuments under the Antiquities Act which has not been disclosed to the public. Documents have been acquired from the Interior Department which exposes the potential plan unilaterally imposing new monument designations without the consent of the people and communities who will be directly impacted.
“There are special interest groups whose sole purpose is to lock up land without any consideration given to the importance of wholesome outside family recreation,” said Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.). The president’s administration seems to be in lock step with these special interests.
It is time to let the Obama Administration know that we don’t want our natural treasures sold to the highest bidder or locked up by special interests.
WHAT’S WITH THIS? Our friend Karen is a member of PEER and the Center for Biological Diversity, which filed a lawsuit against Ken Salazar for BP Oil’s affect on wildlife on July 26, 2010… Salazar made no changes environmentalists had been asking for regarding deep sea off-shore drilling when he was appointed to his current position. The Center for Biodiversity says Salazar should be held liable for not honoring the Endangered Species Act. This act requires all federal agencies, including the former Minerals Management Service, to ensure that any action they carry out does not “jeopardize” a threatened or endangered species.” Is this what is called loyalty? http://www.examiner.com/solar-energy-in-san-francisco/center-for-biological-diversity-files-lawsuit-against-ken-salazar-for-bp-oil-s-affect-on-wildlife
WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND. The Center for Biological Diversity lost a 2005 defamation lawsuit to fifth-generation rancher Jim Chilton of Arivaca, Arizona, when a jury awarded him $600,000, including $500,000 in punitive damages for falsely accusing him of damaging the range. The Center appealed the decision to the Arizona State Supreme Court and lost again in 2007. http://www.undueinfluence.com/Center_for_Biological_Diversity.htm
Now THAT is justice served!