The prizes keep flowing for reigning Worst Company in America champ BP, which not only received the Golden Poo for its spilleriffic efforts, but now gets the pleasure of an independent audit to verify it’s on the up-and-up in terms of distributing the $20 billion oil spill victim compensation fund. [More]
oil spills
Exxon Mobil Pipeline Leaks Into Yellowstone River
By 7.4.11
Ah, nature. Chirping birds, fresh air and oil gushing into rivers. Credit the latter to a leaking pipeline operated by Exxon Mobil. The company says as many as 1,000 barrels of crude have leaked into Montana’s Yellowstone River, leaving its mark as far as 10 miles away from the pipeline. [More]
BP To Pay $25 Million Penalty For Alaska Oil Spill
By 5.3.11
Long before BP was cutting costs — and spilling oodles of oil — into the Gulf of Mexico, it was polluting the soil in Alaska by refusing to properly maintain its pipeline system. And now your Worst Company In America has agreed to pony up $25 million to settle the federal investigation into a massive Alaska spill in Prudhoe Bay. [More]
Just How Much BP Oil Is Left In The Marshes?
By 4.28.11
On the one-year anniversary of the catastrophic BP oil spill in the gulf, scientists are still struggling to figure out just how much oil is in the marshes. This excellent New York Times video explores their challenges, not the least of which is the inherent complexity of determining the damage to a vast and vibrant ecosystem. One group of researchers, for example, are guesstimating the number of bird deaths by taking bird carcasses out to sea, dropping them in, and seeing how many wash ashore. [More]
Commission Cites Halliburton For Lax Pre Oil-Spill Tests
By 10.29.10
BP insisted that the blowout and resulting oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico wasn’t all its fault, and the government agrees. [More]
Post-Spill, Gulf Coast Residents Vomit Brown, Bleed From Ears
By 10.29.10
Some Gulf Coast residents are suffering from grim maladies months after they were exposed to the chemical oil dispersants sprayed by BP. “I started to vomit brown, and my pee was brown also,” one man told Al Jazeera. The chemicals that break up oil seem to also be good at breaking up human red blood cells, according to eyewitness reporters by local health care providers. “We have dolphins that are hemorrhaging,” said an EPA whistleblower. [More]
See The Show BP Would Rather Blot Out With Black Gook
By 10.26.10
Catch the FRONTLINE doc on the BP Gulf spill on PBS tonight. A newly released excerpt shows how the oil giant behaved in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, pushing aging infrastructure that was supposed to only last until 1987 for years past its limits. [More]
Chevron Calls Out Pranksters Who Put Up Fake Site (Update: It Was All A Hoax)
By 10.19.10
UPDATE: This post was based on a hoax perpetrated by the corporate pranksters/filmmakers the Yes Men, who put out a fake press release under the Chevron name. The quote attributed to Chevron in the post came from the fake release. Thanks to Sara for pointing this out. [More]
Feds Tell Reporter It's Illegal To Build Sand Castles in Florida
By 9.20.10
A journalist who was searching the Florida Gulf Islands National Seashore for signs of oil pollution got a silly reason to go home from federal agents. A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service representative told the WEAR ABC 3 Pensacola reporter, who was using a shovel to dig through the sand, that he needed to produce a permit that said he could do so. Soon after, a National Parks Service rep told the reporter the same thing. [More]
Internal BP Report Deflects Blame Onto Contracted Rig Workers
By 9.8.10
An BP internal investigation has found that responsibility for the Gulf spill lies less with its corner-cutting practices and more with poor decisions and bad judgment calls by Transocean and Halliburton workers on the doomed oil rig. Gee, what a surprise. [More]
Gulf Fish "Trying To Crawl Out Of The Water"
By 8.25.10
“Jubilee” is a fun word. Down in the Gulf, it means when fish, crabs, eels and shrimp flood to the shoreline to escape oxygen-deprived waters. It’s a big party as locals scoop up seafood by the bucket-load. While the phenomenon naturally occurs when strong winds stir up hypoxic water from the bottom, for the first time ever it’s being seen occur in open water, with the fish flocking to the water’s surface. Said one fisherman, “It looks like all of the sea life is trying to get out of the water.” [More]
Report: Big-Mouthed BP CEO To Step Down
By 7.26.10
Even though Tony Hayward said in June that he had no intention of stepping down as CEO of British Petroleum, it looks like he might have spoken too soon, as several reports say Tone-Bone will be readying his golden parachute following today’s board meeting. [More]
BP Staff "Deeply Affected" By Coffee Spill Parody Video
By 7.15.10
BP’s Managing Director, Bob Dudley, reacts to the seeing for the first time the viral hit video “BP Spills Coffee” in a PBS interview. He says that the video has “deeply affected” the staff at BP and it “makes their shoulders go down.” [More]
BP To Test New Cap
By 7.13.10
BP has attached a new, snugger cap – with the cheery moniker of “Top Hat 10 – on the gushing Gulf well and will soon begin tests to see if they didn’t cock things up for once. [More]
What The BP Spill Might Look Like 360 Days Later
By 7.12.10
If you’ve got any plans to ever visit any beaches on the east coast, best get them in this summer before it’s too late. That’s the conclusion you can draw if this simulation by researchers of how the BP Gulf spill will look 360 days after April 20th comes to pass. [More]
BP's Internal Mag Discovers Oil Spill Helped Gulf Coast Economy
By 6.22.10
According to BP’s in-house online magazine, Planet BP, there is a silver lining in the giant puddle of oil they caused to spew all over the Gulf of Mexico. That’s right, the spill, far from devastating the local economy, is causing it to prosper! [More]
BP Gulf-Sized Spilling Occurs In Nigeria Annually, But Nobody Cares
By 6.15.10
For America, the BP spill in the Gulf is a “tragedy that never should have happened,” requiring, “the largest environmental response in this country’s history. In Nigeria, they just call it “Thursday.” [More]
BP Customer Service Rep Says Disaster Call Center "A Diversion"
By 6.14.10
“Janice” has been working in the BP Call Center in Houston, answering calls about the disaster from all over the world, and she says she and her coworkers don’t think the calls are being sent any higher up in the company. “We’re a diversion to stop them from really getting to the corporate office, to the big people. I don’t want to get emotional, but it’s so frustrating when these people live right there [in the Gulf Coast] and nothing is being done to help them.” [More]
