Exxon Charged With Illegally Dumping Waste In Pennsylvania 246
Exxon has been charged with illegally dumping over 50,000 gallons of wastewater at a shale-gas drilling site in Pennsylvania. From the article: 'Exxon unit XTO Energy Inc. discharged the water from waste tanks at the Marquandt well site in Lycoming County in 2010, according to a statement on the website of Pennsylvania’s attorney general. The pollution was found during an unannounced visit by the state’s Department of Environmental Protection.
The inspectors discovered a plug removed from a tank, allowing the wastewater to run onto the ground, polluting a nearby stream. XTO was ordered to remove 3,000 tons of soil to clean up the area. Wastewater discharged from natural-gas wells can contain chlorides, barium, strontium and aluminum, the attorney general’s statement showed.
“Criminal charges are unwarranted and legally baseless,” the XTO unit said yesterday in a statement posted on its website. “There was no intentional, reckless or negligent misconduct by XTO.”'
Can we have someone go to jail now, please? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Can we have someone go to jail now, please? (Score:4, Funny)
I'm getting sick of these companies getting away with fines or other slaps on the wrist. I want to see at least some of these thugs in the upper tiers behind bars!
Mayhap a trail of emails or (shudder) NSA monitored phones can catch them.
Wastewater discharged from natural-gas wells can contain chlorides, barium, strontium and aluminum,
Sounds like the average energy drink...
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FUEL energy drink perhaps?
No (Score:5, Funny)
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Unfortunately the French Revolution was very indiscriminate.
see: Antoine Lavoisier
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Yeah those "college students, weed smoking liberal hippies, and unwashed OWS layabouts" have done a really good job. Remind me again which political groups that they've worked for that have been acted for/to american society? And of course those "NRA gun-toting loudmouths" were also the backbenchers behind the tea party which ... gee...actually made a serious impact on the political landscape.
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So what? Read the parent and grandparent comments.
Re:No (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, but not a good one. Eric Cantor and Mitch McConell have yet to do anything useful or intelligent.
Re:No (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, but not a good one. Eric Cantor and Mitch McConell have yet to do anything useful or intelligent.
They're not supposed to. They're meat puppets. They got the corporate hand shoved so far up their asses, they're chewing the Koch brothers' fingernails.
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You don't think OWS had a serious impact on the political landscape?
Either you haven't been paying attention or you have a blind spot.
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No they did not. The republicans sold out to the religious right long before they came along. Barry Goldwater's words make sense to you yet?
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the poor outnumber the top 5% by a good 100,000 to 1, not great odds
You were doing so well up to that point, I almost clicked the YouTube link. Still, 19:1 is enough for it to be a problem.
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If you have been unemployed that long, paid into the social safety net when you were employed and now refuse to take advantage you are a dumbass.
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The reason for using weapons matters, not just the fact that someone is willing to open fire.
Those Ted Nugent loudmouths talk a big game and while I'm sure many are serious, most will shit themselves like he did when called to action.
Although I disapprove of guns in schools for any reason, I'd sooner arm elementary school teachers than any of the 2nd amendment wingnuts.
At least I know the people like the ones at Sandy Hook will actually put their lives on the line for what they believe in, whether or not t
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Course, back then, they actually funded things like mental hospitals to treat mental patients, not elect them to Congress...
Re:No (Score:5, Informative)
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Where's old Stoneface when you need him?
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I want to see at least some of these thugs in the upper tiers behind bars!
I'd be happy to see them eat their own dog food. Put a GPS ankle-bracelet on them and make them live on the polluted land and drink the polluted water.
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I certainly agree that I'd like criminal charges applied to decision makers at companies like this. BUT...
50,000 gallons isn't that much water. It was a 10,000 gallon-per-day spill. That's garden-hose territory. The fact that they were made to clean it up and pay fines seems reasonable to me - I'm not sure jail time is warranted here.
Re:Can we have someone go to jail now, please? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Can we have someone go to jail now, please? (Score:5, Insightful)
But they didn't deliberately deface anything - they left a plug out of a tank, which leaked contaminated water at a rate which may not have seemed significant. They seem to have made good on the cleanup. Intent matters - that's why we have murder and manslaughter.
Re:Can we have someone go to jail now, please? (Score:4, Insightful)
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If is is deliberate it is not negligence. That is the whole point. This leak was negligent but not intentional. Negligent is enough for criminal charges. Had the cap leaked from being cross threaded instead of totally left out, that would be accidental.
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Any human endeavor will involve mistakes. Sending some poor slob to jail for forgetting to put a plug in is not really justified IMHO. Sending his manager to jail for not double-checking is once removed from that. Sending his VP to jail starts to get even more absurd. The company needs to own up and make good, but jail wouldn't be very effective here.
Note that my wife is a doctor, so I may have a skewed view of the tort system. I'd hate to see her go to jail for an inevitable mistake, or one by one of the s
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Bullshit, failure to have someone double check that sort of thing is negligence.
Everyone makes mistakes, the problem is not bothering to plan for them. I saw a nurse fired when a doctor instructed her to cut a patient's facial hair with scissors instead of the correct tool, she ended up nicking some hoses. The nurse was in the wrong, the doctor was negligent. He instructed someone to use the wrong tool, knowing this might happen, just so he could get out of the office a little sooner that day. The patient w
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They ARE being charged with criminal offenses:
"XTO Energy Inc. is charged with five counts of unlawful conduct under the Clean Streams Law and three counts of unlawful conduct under the Solid Waste Management Act."
It just doesn't involve jail.
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Which means they might as well be civil offenses.
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You mean nightmares like laughing while you pay the fine and plead no contest?
I would love to see some of the implications. So far BP seems totally fine.
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Perfectly fine? Take a look at the 5-year stock price chart for Exxon vs BP. That's on top of the cash payments (to the owners, the dividend hit). Total return since just before the spill [msn.com] is very poor. Someone who purchased $10k worth of stock in BP is down over $5800 compared to someone who bought Exxon, and down almost $2900 in absolute terms.
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They seem to have made good on the cleanup. Intent matters - that's why we have murder and manslaughter.
Then again, people do go to jail for manslaughter as well as murder.
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But they didn't deliberately deface anything - they left a plug out of a tank, which leaked contaminated water at a rate which may not have seemed significant. They seem to have made good on the cleanup. Intent matters - that's why we have murder and manslaughter.
It's still negligence, contrary to the AG's statement “There was no intentional, reckless or negligent misconduct by XTO.”'
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50,000 gallons isn't that much water. It was a 10,000 gallon-per-day spill. That's garden-hose territory. The fact that they were made to clean it up and pay fines seems reasonable to me - I'm not sure jail time is warranted here.
Wouldn't that sort of depend on what was in the water? That's 6 gallons per minute. It is a bit of a witches brew they are spewing in my backyard. Gasoline? Sulfuric acid? You'd support that being dumped in your backyard?
The real blast from TFA is:
“Charging XTO under these circumstances could discourage good environmental practices,”
We've only been told for years that we must punish all offenders heavily.
It only follows that if we remove all environmental restrictions, no fines, no p
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We've only been told for years that we must punish all offenders heavily.
Told by idiots. What's your take on the War on Drugs? All drug carrying offenders must be punished heavily, amirite?
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The people who are paying insignificant fines, you know unlike the people who do years in jail for possessing trivial amount of plant matter. On the other hand if you are a baseball player you can mail yourself ounces of the stuff and pay a little fine. In both cases it is quite clear, harsh punishments are only for the poors.
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Minor consequences?
So you would be happy to replace all of your fluid intake with this liquid? Perhaps have this soil being removed exchanged for the topsoil on your property.
If you want to drink the stuff fine by me, but don't expect that I want to drink it too.
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NOTHING about this being the maximum release.
That's a good point. But I can't guess better than the grand jury.
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50,000 gallons isn't that much water. It was a 10,000 gallon-per-day spill. That's garden-hose territory.
I'd like to see your garden. Looks like it may make a great football field.
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No, seriously. I think a garden hose is around 300 GPH, and this works out to 416 GPH. It's not that big of a flow and I could buy their claim that they didn't know they were leaking.
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I certainly agree that I'd like criminal charges applied to decision makers at companies like this. BUT...
50,000 gallons isn't that much water. It was a 10,000 gallon-per-day spill. That's garden-hose territory. The fact that they were made to clean it up and pay fines seems reasonable to me - I'm not sure jail time is warranted here.
I can't see how they can claim it is neither negligent nor deliberate - as far as I can see the only reason you wouldn't consider this to be negligent is if it was done intentionally.
So whilst it may not be a serious spill, I would say that they need to be punished either for doing it deliberately (for which there is no excuse), or for trying to weasel out of it instead of just admitting that an accident had happened and cleaning it up.
If it turned out to not be deliberate, and they didn't try to weasel out
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They were held accountable. They had to remove soil and paid a fine. They are also being charged under environmental laws in the state of PA - I'm just not sure how jail time would help here. I tend to be anti-jail for nonviolent offenders, so maybe I'm just biased.
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They have a duty to operate at all times in accordance with good environmental practice. Leaving a tank open for 5 minutes, let alone 5 days, does not seem to meet that standard. This is not some paperwork violation. Pursuing the case criminally sends a very strong and imo correct message to operators.
Re:Can we have someone go to jail now, please? (Score:4, Insightful)
I wonder who came up with that specific 'fact', that oil is a contaminant right at 'one part per million'. It certainly makes the "one gallon of oil can make one million gallons of water undrinkable" line sound horrible, but what is the basis in fact?
Is 0.8 ppm safe, but 1.0 deadly? What about 0.6 ppm? Is water contaminated when one gallon of oil spills into a 2-million gallon tank? For that matter, oil floats on top of water, so how does the lower 99% get contaminated? If somehow a gallon of oil was mixed into water in such a way that every molecule of oil was separate, and each molecule floated 7 inches from any other one, how many gallons would be contaminated by that oil?
Re:Can we have someone go to jail now, please? (Score:4, Insightful)
For that matter, oil floats on top of water, so how does the lower 99% get contaminated?
Why do so many geeks have so much trouble comprehending simple guidelines? The water at the bottom is below 1.0ppm and therefore safe to consume, matter of fact many Aussies put some oil in their water tank to prevent mosquito wrigglers (the little fuckers can't come up to breath when there's a layer of oil on top). Note that not all oils float nice and neatly on the top of the water, heavy crude oil has a tendency to form tarballs and sink to the bottom, given a large enough body of still water, light oil will spread out to an unbroken film exactly one molecule thick.
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Take a thousand people, some drink 0.6ppm of contaminated water, some drink 1.0ppm, some drink pure water. Record the number of illnesses, plot the graphs with pretty colours. If the 1.0ppm drinkers are above the pure water plots, and they are getting ill, 1.0ppm is too much.
Of course, that's simplified to the max, but the method is understandable.
And, getting water to mix wit
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Yeah, we don't put enough people behind bars here in America. . .
Incarceration has few benefits and many drawbacks. It should be reserved for people who have genuinely proven themselves to be dangerous for society. "Throw 'em in jail" is a knee-jerk reaction and it's done more harm than good in the past. Examples such as alcohol prohibition and the 'war on drugs' are obvious.
I would be that imposing prison time for offenses such as this would only make top-tier corporate culture even more corrupt. Once a pe
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Agreed. After all, "Corporations are people too, my friend."
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They have also gotten away with not showing a complete list of every chemical they use in there fracking process, claiming it is a "trade secret". How f'in secretive can it be when every drilling company is fracking?
In other words, that's what you'd expect of actual trade secrets of considerable value. If I had a business with no potential competitors, then trade secrets wouldn't have much value.
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Or of someone with something to hide.
If you are injecting stuff into the ground where it will leak onto other peoples property you should have a duty to disclose those substances to them.
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Like open source has no potential competitors?
Open source doesn't have trade secrets (being open and all) so it's not useful as any sort of analogy.
They dumped the waste water yet no misconduct (Score:2)
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What about other Counties?
Rivers don't just stop at the county line. Pollutants can be carried down stream, and make it into groundwater for an entire state.
Re:They dumped the waste water yet no misconduct (Score:5, Informative)
It's according to how much actual toxic waste was in the water.
While the article (and the excerpt above) mention a list of scary chemicals that "can" be found in wastewater from natural gas drilling, it's also quite possible that the major component was... mud. And a small percentage of oil (usually three percent or less, and even lower for a natural gas well, all the way down to "practically zero") - and other not-very-toxic stuff. Or "toxic chemicals" found in parts per million or lower. If they were using fracking chemicals, the mud might have had some bleach and surfactants in it.
Now, if the rock they were drilling through had a high metal content, the water may have picked up some of that - but probably not too much, overall. Enough to break water standards, but not enough to be actually dangerous.
Since there's no charges, it was probably low-concentration stuff - a technical violation, but not serious.
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Now, if the rock they were drilling through had a high metal content, the water may have picked up some of that - but probably not too much, overall. Enough to break water standards, but not enough to be actually dangerous.
Since there's no charges, it was probably low-concentration stuff - a technical violation, but not serious.
I can get you some of this stuff if you want to drink it. After all - you declared it not actually dangerous and a technical but not serious violation.
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It's according to how much actual toxic waste was in the water.
While the article (and the excerpt above) mention a list of scary chemicals that "can" be found in wastewater from natural gas drilling, it's also quite possible that the major component was... mud. And a small percentage of oil (usually three percent or less, and even lower for a natural gas well, all the way down to "practically zero") - and other not-very-toxic stuff. Or "toxic chemicals" found in parts per million or lower. If they were using fracking chemicals, the mud might have had some bleach and surfactants in it.
Now, if the rock they were drilling through had a high metal content, the water may have picked up some of that - but probably not too much, overall. Enough to break water standards, but not enough to be actually dangerous.
Since there's no charges, it was probably low-concentration stuff - a technical violation, but not serious.
Dear lord, drilling mud is more than just plain mud. "Parts per million! Who cares about a few parts per million!?"
Those are the parts that get you!
Re:They dumped the waste water yet no misconduct (Score:5, Interesting)
Because shit happens. I've worked at several big chemical plants and all of them have had spills. (To me, this sounds like a "spill" and not "dumping waste.") It's just the nature of the beast, nothing works perfectly all the time. At one plant in particular, vandals/kids/idiots with too much time on their hands got onto the property (not hard to do when the facility covers thousands of acres) and removed a cover off a pipe, causing thousands of gallons of water with a ph of about 1 to flow into a nearby stream, which eventually made its way into the bay and caused a large fish kill. Yes, the company was fined. Yes, corrective action was taken to avoid it from happening again.
From what I read, Exxon cleaned up the contaminated area as best they could. I seriously doubt the spill was done on purpose. I live in the middle of frack-land and these oil companies are spending millions buying/leasing mineral rights, hauling equipment in and out, drilling, fracking, trucking out wastewater and hauling equipment away. Millions of dollars are spent at each drill site. They're not going to risk "dumping" wastewater to save a few bucks on having it hauled away.
hauled away (Score:2)
Yes, 'hauled away'... somewhere... somewhere else... someone else's problem...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuyahoga_River#Environmental_concerns [wikipedia.org]
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However one component of affirmative defense is that you were operating in accordance with sound engineering principles and good environmental practice. A tank being opened for 5 days does not appear to meet that standard.
Simply cleaning up your mess is generally not sufficient recourse for environmental releases. There should always be a penalty component to pr
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Even if what you said was true, you assume that the reward outweighs the risk. You are flat out wrong. Intent matters. In our industry, we get a serious investigation from OSHA even if a union worker dies of a heart attack, or if someone ran a stop sign and caused an accident at the facility. We do everything we can to make it safe, even as far as changing traffic patterns, and it is the number one commitment in my company. See, the fines START at the massive numbers and are reduced if you can prove th
Yes, it happens (Score:4, Interesting)
Nuke, frak, solar panel production, high capacity battery production....some idiot middle manager will try to reduce costs at his level, and this is what we get.
Re:Yes, it happens (Score:4, Insightful)
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Plus a significant percentage of company gross income.
How come (Score:3)
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If you could do that, you'd be the CEO.
Business as usual (Score:2)
What I want to see is the difference between legal and illegal 'dumping'. Sounds redundant, emotional and perhaps an attempt to make things either wors
What does that mean? (Score:2)
From TFA:
XTO Energy Inc. is charged with five counts of unlawful conduct under the Clean Streams Law and three counts of unlawful conduct under the Solid Waste Management Act.
What does it mean for a corporation to face criminal charges? Is this just civil damages in a weird format, or is a specific person/people being held liable? Both linked articles refer only to XTO and not to any individual being charged.
Re:What does that mean? (Score:5, Informative)
Failure to appear when subpoenas are issued will have serious consequences for the billionaires.
You can't just send a lawyer to represent you in a criminal court.
Forcing the people that run the company to show up in court will send a message.
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Corporations always indemnify directors and officers for actions they take on behalf of the corporation.
Otherwise NOBODY would accept such a position.
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Almost always. In some criminal cases the corporate veil can be pierced.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piercing_the_corporate_veil [wikipedia.org]
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A corporation's board of directors are legally responsible for the company's actions.
Failure to appear when subpoenas are issued will have serious consequences for the billionaires.
You can't just send a lawyer to represent you in a criminal court.
Forcing the people that run the company to show up in court will send a message.
And seeing them walk out again afterwards will send another message.
Robber baron corporate fucktards (Score:2, Informative)
In Q2 2010, (around when the dumping was occurring), Exxon reported its worst quarterly profits in years. Some might say that explains this, while not excusing this. Corporate pressure to cut budgets was driving lower managers, etc. However, in that -low- quarter, guess how much net profit (not gross revenue) they reported?
6.86 billion dollars
(source: http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/08/01/exxon-2q-profit-lowest-since-2010/2608403/ [usatoday.com] )
Yep. In one fucking poor quarter they earned nearl
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How much did apple make?
During the same quarter (Q2 2010)? Assuming ExxonMobil and Apple mean the same thing when they say "Q2", it's 3.07 billion dollars [apple.com].
Pardon?! (Score:3)
"The inspectors discovered a plug removed from a tank, allowing the wastewater to run onto the ground, polluting a nearby stream." ...
“There was no intentional, reckless or negligent misconduct by XTO.”'
Not intentional.... okay.
Not reckless nor negligent?! I think someone needs to check the meaning of those words in a non-lawyer dictionary.
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Not reckless nor negligent?! I think someone needs to check the meaning of those words in a non-lawyer dictionary.
These imply intent. Reckless and negligent are words used to describe plants with poor operating controls, poor maintenance, and large problems caused by cost cutting. The inspectors found something, so now they look at the inspection scheme they have, they identify if the inspections were sufficient, if the company would have found the problem themselves and fixed it, or simply ignored it, and they would also look at the company's history of self reporting.
You can spill a lot more and not be "negligent". S
never been a better example (Score:2)
Of big business controlling the gov't
Why not just fine Exxon 3 billion dollars and send everyone in PA to college for free?
Free Market (Score:2, Insightful)
That wasn't "wastewater", that was Exxon's proprietary formula of Hydroxylic Acid. And any children who are found with Hyrdoxylic Acid in their bloodstream better get ready get sued by Exxon.
Job CreatorsTM, bitches!
Intent doesn't matter (Score:2)
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Nope. Lots of fatal accidents result in no charges. Are you going to charge a driver for hitting some idiot trying to cross a road illegally?
https://www.piersystem.com/go/doc/2155/1883126/ [piersystem.com]
So this time they got caught (Score:3)
I wonder what would happen if the fine was large and applied to fund more random inspections. I think it would show they are routinely flaunting the law. If there was any effective law enforcement it might even show a criminal conspiracy. Fortunately no one has to worry about that, because the real outcome will be the result of political pressure to stop inspections.
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What are the chances that this is the only time they screwed up?
Quite highly I imagine. People who think it's easy to control every tiny part of a process plant obviously haven't worked at a process plant.
Attorney general (Score:3)
attorney general’s statement showed. “Criminal charges are unwarranted and legally baseless,”
Of course they won't prosecure.
Professional courtesy.
From one criminal [wikipedia.org] to another. The big banks [thehill.com] were also afforded this courtesy, of arbitrary refusal to prosecute by the US AG.
A hefty fine (Score:2)
This could cost Exxon HUNDREDS of dollars!
of course they will deny it (Score:2)
Most criminals will deny their crimes. We just have to figure out if someone removed the plug intentionally or if it was an accident and the plug came out on its own. But if it came out on its own, they are still liable for buying cheap plugs.
Should have kept quiet about that (Score:2)
TCODB (Score:2)
Dollar-wise, it's right below the amount spent on office chairs.
The plug was left out, that is negligent (Score:3)
Not maintaining your equipment is pretty much the definition of negligence.
What is a "Cleanup"? (Score:2)
Re:Now what? (Score:5, Insightful)
My friend had a 50,000 gallon above-ground pool in his backyard. If it's even a problem due to exotic chemicals, make them clean it up. It's not that much.
Why the hell is this a topic aside from obvious desire by some for disasterbation? It would barely be a local news story in some small town.
So the company has the decision to make...
(a) $x to dispose of the waste properly
(b) $0 to simply turn on a tap and let the waste drain away, and (say) $10x to clean it up in the unlikely event that they get caught, which probably comes out of some other departments budget anyway
Seems that if there is no actual penalty for (b), then (b) is the obvious choice and it's going to keep happening, which I think is kind of a big deal. It should either be illegal with penalties to suit, or legal and let them do it without any fuss.
If you threw some rubbish on the ground and were caught, and the only penalty was that you had to pick your rubbish up again, where is the incentive to stop doing it again? (assuming you are too lazy to do the right thing in the first place without some incentive)
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You forgot the third option, which may or may not be available to Exxon depending on how they work with subsidiaries and/or sub-contractors: declare bankruptcy leaving the clean-up to the taxpayers.
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2. The article says "Wastewater discharged from natural-gas wells can contain chlorides, barium, strontium and aluminum", not that it does. That is hype.
3. Some idiot pulled a plug in a waste tank. It's not a corporate conspiracy. No major oil company would risk dumping wastewater like that.
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That could easily be the size of the tank that was opened and the water let drain away that day, the inspector called by. The other days there was no inspection and no evidence to present to a court.
Could it be that this "spill" was a one off, a freak coincidence that the inspector called when it happened? Of course i am assuming the inspector witnessed the spillage and it wasn't the site operators who presented him with a record of the spillage from another day.
Personally i hope the Inspector bought a lot