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Environmental Scientist Caught Agreeing To Ignore Her Own Data, Make Up New Claims
Wizbang Blog ^ | December 12, 2011 | Kevin

Posted on 12/13/2011 12:19:01 PM PST by Mount Athos

Dr. Ann Maest is a managing scientist at Straus Consulting, and she’s the go to expert on all things groundwater. In the press release announcing her reappointment to the National Academy of Sciences, they mention that she is focused on the environmental effects of mining and petroleum extraction and production, and, more recently, on the effects of climate change on water quality.

Maest is in high demand as an expert for those looking to stop oil and mineral exploration. She’s also heavily used by the federal government, even though after new details about her past work are coming to light as a result of a lawsuit. From The New York Times:

An environmental consulting firm named as a defendant in a racketeering suit filed by Chevron Corp. over a landmark pollution lawsuit in Ecuador is continuing to work on another blockbuster case: the Deepwater Horizon oil spill investigation.

Boulder, Colo.-based Stratus Consulting, a long-term contractor with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and other federal agencies, is gathering and analyzing data concerning the Gulf of Mexico spill.

Chevron has is suing those behind the Ecuadorian case including: the lead attorney Steven Donziger; Stratus Consulting; and Maest. As part of their lawsuit, Chevron obtained through discovery, outtakes from a documentary called “Crude” that show Donziger and Maest colluding ignore their own findings and make up some new unsubstantiated claims. Watch this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1N6SyeRUiw0

Maest says that in their study contamination has not spread and is only found at the site of the pit. Donziger says let’s just extrapolate and say what we want. Maest readily agrees. Donziger goes on to say that it’s Ecuador and if they have 1000 people around the court house they win, the report is just smoke, mirrors, and bullshit.

Of course when you’re endeavoring to pull off a multi-billion dollar legal heist in a banana republic you don’t stop at just inventing damages; you stack the deck on the judicial side as well, since that just requires a little “donation.” What Chevron has been able to show from the outtakes and records obtained is the Maest and her firm drafted substantial portions of the report of the independent expert, Richard Cabrera, who they allege Donziger was instrumental in getting appointed to do the court order study of the alleged environmental damage. Sounds like a criminal enterprise to extort, right? That’s what Chevron thinks, and it’s why they’re suing under RICO.

In addition to being sued, Maest’s work (if that’s what you want to call it) was thouroughly debunked by another team of scientists.

It is hardly a surprise that Donziger is an old Harvard buddy of, you guessed it, President Obama. What’s really surprising is that here we have a National Academy of Science member caught red-handed agreeing to make up data, and our government wants to give her more business.

Update: In the comments there was a question as to whether Maest was on board with Donziger’s plan. See the video below and make up your own mind…

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bDdQwTmUaY


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Crime/Corruption; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: annmaest; cabrera; chevron; crude; deepwaterhorizon; documentary; documyths; donziger; econuts; ecuador; environmentalfraud; film; gas; globalwarming; groundwater; gulf; gulfofmexico; harvard; maest; mineralexploration; nas; noaa; obama; oil; oilandgas; oilexploration; oilspill; richardcabrera; stevedonziger; stevendonziger; stratusconsulting; strausconsulting; water; waterquality

1 posted on 12/13/2011 12:19:06 PM PST by Mount Athos
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To: Mount Athos

The Environmental Scientist moniker also made up


2 posted on 12/13/2011 12:22:46 PM PST by molson209
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To: Mount Athos

really is a shame.


3 posted on 12/13/2011 12:27:38 PM PST by TV Dinners (Hope is not a Strategy)
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To: Mount Athos

Fraud bump.


4 posted on 12/13/2011 12:38:33 PM PST by Inyo-Mono (My greatest fear is that when I'm gone my wife will sell my guns for what I told her I paid for them)
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To: Inyo-Mono

There are more of these anti-science scumbag whores than you want to know. Sad. Liberals.


5 posted on 12/13/2011 12:43:39 PM PST by hal ogen (First Amendment or Reeducation Camp?)
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To: Mount Athos

Looks like a candidate for Newt’s new Governmental Environmental whatever.


6 posted on 12/13/2011 12:53:49 PM PST by itsahoot (Throw them all out! Especially the Frugal Socialists who call themselves Republicans.)
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To: Mount Athos

Most of them take an “ends justifies the means” approach to the whole thing. I hear that a lot from enviroweanies.


7 posted on 12/13/2011 1:02:56 PM PST by AppyPappy (If you really want to annoy someone, point out something obvious that they are trying hard to ignore)
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To: Mount Athos

These people in this film should be skinned alive and rolled in rock salt.


8 posted on 12/13/2011 1:18:57 PM PST by Dogbert41 (Israel is real:))
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To: AppyPappy

Liberals of all stripes (communists, socialists, statists, fascists, etc) ALL take an “ends justify the means” approach.

Whether they admit it, or get caught doing it, varies.

Take the WI recall going on here. There are people signing different recall petitions 80 times and bragging they are signing more than once.

But it is classic what they are doing.

Creating data out of nothing.
Only looking at data that support their positions.
Disqualifying data that rejects their positions.
Manipulating people by directly lying to them so as they make a different decision than they otherwise would.

These people are just wicked and evil people.


9 posted on 12/13/2011 2:13:15 PM PST by Secret Agent Man (I'd like to tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.)
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To: molson209

Put these socialist democrat frauds in Jail and throw away the key. Next swing over to the AGW/IPCC CO2 scammers. You will find the same fraud going on over their. The grants funding these type of PHONEY SCIENTISTIC STUDIES will only be stopped when we boot the SOCIALIST DEMOCRATIC FRAUDS who enable these SCAM ARTISTS to exist our on their idealogical rear ends in the next elections, staring with Obama.


10 posted on 12/13/2011 4:00:16 PM PST by spawn44 (NSWWER)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach; Rurudyne; steelyourfaith; Tolerance Sucks Rocks; xcamel; AdmSmith; ...

Thanks Mount Athos.


11 posted on 12/13/2011 5:17:56 PM PST by SunkenCiv (Merry Christmas, Happy New Year! May 2013 be even Happier!)
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To: SunkenCiv; Berlin_Freeper; Horusra; Darnright; rdl6989; bamahead; Nervous Tick; SteamShovel; ...
Thanx again for the ping SunkenCiv !

 


Beam me to Planet Gore !

12 posted on 12/13/2011 5:37:42 PM PST by steelyourfaith (If it's "green" ... it's crap !!!)
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To: Mount Athos

enviro fraud bump for later.........


13 posted on 12/13/2011 6:34:52 PM PST by indthkr
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