Federal prosecutors want to revoke the probation of BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. on grounds that the company has been a repeat offender of environmental laws in its oil operations on Alaska’s North Slope, according to the Associated Press.
The company’s 2007 guilty plea to a misdemeanor violation of the Clean Water Act the year before has already led to three years of probation, a $12 million fine, and restitution and community service payments totaling $8 million to the state of Alaska and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, BP attorneys said in opposing the government’s move.
But the government said the company has failed to heed court warnings to concentrate more on safety and less on profits, as evidenced by a 2009 spill that was “was completely predictable and absolutely preventable,” prosecutors said in the court filing. Assistant U.S. Attorney Aunnie Steward of the District of Alaska said Wednesday that revocation of probation could mean extra penalties or an additional, longer probation term.
A 200,000-gallon North Slope oil spill in 2006 — the largest ever in Alaska’s oil patch — was followed by a 13,500-gallon spill three years later, prosecutors have argued in trying to establish negligence. Company lawyers said BP was not negligent, that it made improvements to its facilities after the 2006 spill, and that no oil from the 2009 spill reached “United States waters,” a standard for a violation of the Clean Water Act, the A.P. said.
A hearing is scheduled for Nov. 29 in Anchorage, the A.P. said, citing a report in The Anchorage Daily News.
“The spills in Alaska were dwarfed by the spill of more than 200 million gallons that followed the April 2010 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig over a BP PLC well in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 rig workers,” the A.P. recalled. “BP PLC has already spent or committed tens of billions of dollars to clean up the oil and compensate victims and faces hundreds of civil lawsuits. Government fines and penalties also could add liability.”
