Agencies mum on Chevron violations

• Oil giant allegedly released 50 times more pollution than originally reported

By Sean Pearson
Homer Tribune

Graph courtesy of Cook InletKeeper - The above graphic indicates the location of both the Trading Bay Facility and Granite Point platform that are currently under investigation.

After executing searches of Chevron’s Trading Bay Production Facility and Granite Point Tank Farm on the west side of Cook Inlet via Blackhawk helicopters some two weeks ago, officials with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency continue to redirect calls for information regarding the extent and significance of the violations to the Department of Justice. Calls to the Department of Environmental Conservation were met with the same redirection.
In turn, a call to Kevin Feldis, Chief of the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice in Anchorage, yielded much the same insight, as Feldis indicated he could not comment on an open investigation.
The question regarding continued air quality along the Peninsula remains unanswered.
In his original documents, EPA Special Agent Matthew Goers said his agency had enough information to suspect that Chevron — and possibly its subsidiaries, managers and employees — committed Clean Air Act violations and made false statements to the federal government.
The alleged violations began in 2006, when Chevron shut down a vapor control unit for two of its oil storage tanks at Trading Bay. The vapor control units were designed to capture vapor from the oil before it leaves the tanks. Goers said shutting the units down allowed air pollution to escape.
Chevron had described the tanks to regulators in 2006 and 2007 as “insignificant sources” of pollution that emitted no more than 2 tons per year of volatile organic compounds and 2 tons per year of hazardous air pollutants.
Instead, the Trading Bay tanks released more than 100 tons per year of volatile organics into the air from 2006 to 2008, Goers wrote. The Granite Point tanks released more than 15 tons per year of crude oil vapors in the same time period.
“What jumps out on this is the fact that Chevron already has a very permissive permit for discharge,” said Cook Inletkeeper Executive Director Bob Shavelson. “No other facility in the country can dump what they do in a coastal area and get away with it. It is pollution-based permitting, and they still can’t even comply with that.”
Shavelson said limits on discharge are in place because emissions comprise known carcinogens.
“We’re not supposed to be putting stuff like that out in the environment,” he said. “But, as far as I know, we don’t have any kind of ambient air monitoring system around to regulate it.”
As an example, Shavelson pointed to how long it took for the tobacco industry to accept responsibility for the health impacts of cigarettes on humans.
“The human body is possibly one of the most studied things, but it’s very hard to show cause and effect without extensive data to base it on,” he explained. “If you take something like the environment and emissions, and figure in things like air dynamics and water dynamics, it becomes very complex.”
In 2008, Chevron sent a letter to state regulators saying it had potentially been violating its Clean Air Act permit since shutting down its vapor control unit two years earlier. It requested that regulators invoke a federal policy that waives or reduces fines for companies that self-report their own violations.
“This whole notion of voluntary reporting of noncompliance is fairly ridiculous,” Shavelson said. “This is how the industry is gaming the system.”
Shavelson said industries often already know they are out of compliance, but aren’t worried because surprise inspections don’t happen any more.
“They just let it continue on, and then come back and say, ‘Oops, we’ve been out of compliance for five years,’” he said. “Then, they think they shouldn’t be prosecuted because they’re ‘voluntarily reporting.’”
Chevron, in a written statement, said it’s cooperating with the investigation and takes noncompliance allegations, “very seriously.”
Shavelson agreed that the allegations were serious, and encouraged government regulation agencies to hold Chevron accountable for its actions.
“Now that the courts have decided that corporations are ‘people’ under the Bill of Rights, let’s see Chevron go to jail for their criminal violations,” Shavelson said.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.

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Posted by Newsroom on Jan 27th, 2010 and filed under Headline News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.