GreenWatch

B. McPherson Ordinary people are out of their homes and businesses are shut down. Who is responsible? Where is the radiation coming from? It the butane storage compromised? Grand Bayou, Louisiana is home to a brand new salty, murky lake. No one wants to take responsibility for the enormous sinkhole that has swallowed 100 foot long cypress trees. Bubbles have marred the surface of the bayou since May, but no answers came from the environmental investigations. Now there is diesel floating on the surface of the salty water. Natural gas pipelines cross this area, but the gas companies have had divers checking the pipes since bubbles were reported and they were intact.  Eyes have now turned to the Texas Brine Company which mines brine from a large underground salt dome. They use the sodium chloride for industrial purposes. The brine company has been ordered to drill an exploratory well to see if their brine claim has been compromised. Their estimate of time it will take –...

By B. McPherson                             The Brazilian government has taken action against Chevron Corporation for their part in an oil spill in the Atlantic Ocean. Along with the Brazilian owned Petrobras Corporation, many petroleum companies are vying for the riches in the Campos Basin. November 7, Chevron had an oil spill when unexpectedly high pressure in the oil pool caused a spill and seepage through weak ocean bed rock. Estimates of the amount of oil entering the ocean vary depending on the source of the reporting, but a conservative estimate is at least 3000 barrels escaped. Bloomberg is reporting that the Brazilian government is taking a tough stand on the spillage and demanding no drilling be done until Chevron comes up with some satisfactory answers. “The company needs to pay more attention to safety after its “negligence” contributed to the accident, Brazil’s oil regulator, the Agencia Nacional do...

By B. McPherson The government of Brazil is fining Chevron about $28 million dollars for the oil spill in the Campos Basin. That’s a little under four days production. Chevron struck oil in their lease concession but the deep water drill site brought up oil at high pressure, enough to force oil up through the pipe and also to allow it to seek escape through weak rock formations. The spill wasn’t reported immediately. The accounts vary depending on who is relating them. The Chevron position is that they assumed the oil slick on the Atlantic was a result of operations by the state owned Petrobas corporation. The Brazilian government is saying that Petrobas was forced to report on Chevron and that Chevron underestimated the amount of oil that escaped to the surface. This current leak is far smaller than the BP catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico in 20ll which saw millions of barrels of oil foul water and beaches in the USA, but the Campos Basin is a massive formation which has several oi...

By B. McPherson Members of the Cofan indigenous people are joining in a multibillion dollar lawsuit against the Texaco oil company, now sold to Chevron to force clean up of highly polluted land. When Texaco was drilling for oil in the Ecuador rain forest, they dumped at least 18 billion gallons of run off onto local lands. Pits designed to sequester toxic sludge were left unlined and uncovered. Local rivers, sources of drinking water and food became poisoned. When Chevron took over Texaco in 2001 they inherited the problems. A legal action taken against them in the US failed. The new lawsuit is being progressed in Ecuador. Steven Donziger, acting as legal counsel for the Cofan tribe is quoted in Al Jazeera: “ Texaco created a system where they dumped literally billions of gallons of toxic waste water", said Steven Donziger, legal counsel. Donziger, who represents the plaintiffs, says the dumping saved the company billions of dollars in operating costs. ” Al Jazeera On the ...