Posted on 12/21/2009 5:18:58 AM PST by thackney
As cleanup continues on one of the biggest oil spills ever on Alaska's North Slope, criminal and civil investigations are under way into the circumstances of the pipeline's rupture.
The criminal investigatory arm of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency joined with the FBI and others to examine what led the pipeline to split open in late November, officials said. An estimated 46,000 gallons of crude oil and water poured from a 2-foot-long gash onto the snowy tundra, cleanup officials say.
"The (EPA) Criminal Investigation Division is continuing to work in concert with our federal and state partners, and British Petroleum, to assess the situation associated with the Nov. 29 rupture," said Tyler Amon, the division's acting special agent in charge for the Northwest. "This matter is under investigation."
BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. runs most of the North Slope's oil fields on behalf of itself and other oil companies and it operated the 18-inch flow line that ruptured.
"We always cooperate with regulatory agencies," BP spokesman Steve Rinehart said. "We have no comment on specific legal questions or specific investigations."
...
This spill comes at a difficult time for BP, which is on probation after pleading guilty in 2007 to a misdemeanor violation of the federal Clean Water Act. That charge stemmed from a spill of more than 200,000 gallons of oil in 2006 from a corroded pipe...
That was BP's second criminal conviction in Alaska for an environmental crime...
(Excerpt) Read more at adn.com ...
I’m sure this political witch hunt will find the (evil) oil company guilty of a laundry list of penalties and the will be fined hundreds of millions of dollars for what amounts to the spillage of an insignificant amount of oil.
46,000 gal. is about 2 train tank cars.
Dearest Mommy nature could just as easily have coughed up such a hairball.
All the same, the tech. is available to clean that up in a heartbeat if they were so inclined.
Sorry it happened, but if we weren't sucking it out and using it, it would be popping up all over even more than it does naturally.
"Who gets the check?" . . ."Naturally!"- Who's on First
Obviously they should pay for cleanup, and be required to improve any deficient maintenance programs, but "criminal" charges ?
C'mon.
Negligence would be the key claim.
With the permafrost depth there is it really that hard to clean up a spill in November if it doesn’t run into the ocean?
I mean can’t you just scrape a few inches of the topsoil up with dozers and then use a front end loader to carry it away at those temperatures?
I know it’s a mess, but to me having the permafrost there is a blessing and should make things easy as hell to clean spills up, or am I missing something.
You are correct. A winter spill of this size is relatively easy to clean up 100%
See the video below of the top soil scraping being done at this site:
http://dec.alaska.gov/spar/perp/response/sum_fy10/091129301/video/vid_20091213.wmv
some of the work is done by hand:
http://dec.alaska.gov/spar/perp/response/sum_fy10/091129301/video/09399933301_12112009_LisburneCommonLineSpill_Lippmann.mpg
This video shows a piece of specialized equipment used on the North Slope to protect the tundra. The rollagon greatly spreads out the weight on very large tires.
http://dec.alaska.gov/spar/perp/response/sum_fy10/091129301/video/LisburneCommonLineSpill_Jackson-2.wmv
Initially ice is used to contain the spill area:
http://dec.alaska.gov/spar/perp/response/sum_fy10/091129301/video/LisburneCommonLineSpill_Jackson%20v11.wmv
Looking down the ruptured pipeline; insulation that normally encompasses the pipe sticks out from the side of the rupture location.
Date: 12/10/2009
View of ruptured 18-inch pipeline from a side angle.
Date: 12/10/2009
Looking up at the hole in the ruptured pipeline.
Date: 12/10/2009
Thanks!
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