BP Complaints

Chevron offers help to clean up gulf oil spill
We’re here to help, said Chevron Corp. on Friday, promising “people, processes, anything that they think we can offer” to help combat the disastrous BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Since then, the San Ramon energy company has dispatched experts in “subsea… Oil spill – Gulf of Mexico – BP – Energy – Environment

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The Guardian

Oil Disaster Creates Stark Contrast With Vision for Clean Energy Huffington Post (blog) As news of the worsening Gulf oil disaster was spreading last week, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar stood at the Massachusetts statehouse announcing … Could Gulf oil leak tar Atlantic, Bay beaches?Baltimore Sun (blog) BP takes its turn as corporate punching bagTampabay.com Market value of companies in rig disaster dropsThe Associated Press Examiner.com –Financial Times –Telegraph.co.uk all 175 news articles »

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A landmark even in Environmental Law, the Exxon Valdez oil spill resulted in drastic changes to oil regulations and new safety procedures to prevent against future oil spills. The March 1989 oil spill was one of the largest in history, resulting in over 10 million gallons of crude oil spilling into the Prime William Sound, directly impacting the entire oceanic ecosystem. The 300 meter tanker was employed to transport oil between the Alaskan Valdez pipeline for domestic US refineries, and the oil spill led to litigation which changed the shape of modern oil production.

As a result of the oil spill, over 30,000 plaintiffs were awarded punitive damages which were reduced by the Supreme Court, and the settlement finally cleared in 2008 after a decade of appeals. The lasting environmental impact left over 25,000 gallons of oil in the Alaskan Gulf, creating a challenge for modern day environmental cleanups. While the companies worked to minimize the damage with dispersants and solvents, the lasting impacts continued to be felt throughout the Prince William Sound. Environmentalists estimate that hundreds of thousands of sea-borne animals were negatively impacted, while salmon populations in the region continue to suffer from defects resulting from the oil spill.

The class action lawsuit Baker v. Exxon started in an Anchorage district court and went all the way to the Supreme Court before a final settlement was reached. In addition to punitive damages, Exxon settled with local industry and environmental groups to alleviate the impact of the oil spill. Lasting regulatory shifts included the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 that limited the precautions oil companies must take in the export trade. New ship designs were required to minimize the potential impact of the spills, while the National Transportation Safety Board implemented stricter controls over those involved in maritime navigation.

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Historically oil spills have posed a variety of environmental challenges during the cleanup process, resulting in prolonged, expensive campaigns to undo their effects.  The Exxon Valdez oil spill is perhaps the most prominent example in recent history, which resulted in a multi-year, multi-billion dollar cleanup in the Alaskan Gulf which continues to draw the ire of environmentalists and policy makers. As a result of this oil spill, environmental engineers have improved cleanup methods to the point that modern cleanups are much more efficient, while preventative measures increasingly ensure that large oil spills are unlikely to occur in the future. While there is still a risk of spills in transporting crude oil via tankers, modern cleanup methods are much more effective than previous generation methods.

One of the most common ways of cleaning an oil spill is to contain and collect the surface oil using advanced skimming technology. Early in the cycle of an oil spill, the oil will float near the surface of the water, which can then be contained using a variety of cordoning methods. Modern skimming technology helps remove oil in calm waters, although it remains a challenge to collect spills in moving or deep water spots.

In these cases of difficult containment, biologists have opted to use methods to improve the biodegradation of the oil to limit the effects of the oil that cannot be strictly contained. By breaking up the oil, the harm on the oceanic environment is limited; although scientists do point out that it still has harmful effects. In many cases, scientists break down the compounds (since oil is organic) by adding certain acids and compounds. The ideal result of the process is that the oil becomes a type of fertilizer which is more soluble and less harmful than direct oil products.

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Weather hampers expanding oil spill clean up as Obama heads to Gulf environmental disaster
NEW YORK/NEW ORLEANS – Weather continued to hinder efforts to fight a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico on Saturday, as the BP oil company finally fessed up that the extent of the leak, which began on Earth Day after the Deepwater Horizon oil platform exploded, may be as much as five times worse than originally thought.

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Newsweek

The Gulf Oil Disaster by the Numbers Clean Energy News (blog) The continuous stream of updates on the Deepwater oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico suggests this story is moving from bad to worse. … Oil Spill 2010 Updates, Oil Hits LandGather.com Social media spreads BP oil spill disasterStarPhoenix Horizon Oil Slick Makes Shorefall; Disaster Writ Large Across Gulf CoastFiredoglake (blog) New York Times (blog) –Suite101.com –InjuryBoard.com (blog) all 20,339 news articles »

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