Exxon-Mobil Pleads Guilty to Killing Migratory Birds in Five States

Exxon-Mobil Pleads Guilty to Killing Migratory Birds in Five States

WASHINGTON – Exxon-Mobil Corporation, the world’s largest publicly traded oil and gas company, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Denver to violating the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) in five states during the past five years, the Justice Department announced today.

The company has agreed to pay fines and community service payments totaling $600,000 and will implement an environmental compliance plan over the next three years aimed at preventing bird deaths on the company’s facilities in the affected states. According to papers filed in court, the company has already spent over $2.5 million to begin implementation of the plan.

The charges stem from the deaths of approximately 85 protected birds, including waterfowl, hawks and owls, at Exxon-Mobil drilling and production facilities in Colorado, Wyoming, Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas between 2004 and 2009. According to the charges and other information presented in court, most of the birds died after exposure to hydrocarbons in uncovered natural gas well reserve pits and waste water storage facilities at Exxon-Mobil sites in Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas.

The company has entered into a plea agreement with the government, calling for guilty pleas to the five charges and a sentence of $400,000 in fines and $200,000 in community service payments. The fines will be deposited into the federally-administered North American Wetlands Conservation Fund. The community service payments will be made to a non-profit waterfowl rehabilitation foundation in Colorado and the congressionally-chartered National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, designated for waterfowl preservation work in each of the affected states. During a three-year probationary period, Exxon-Mobil must also implement an "environmental compliance plan" designed to keep birds from coming into contact with oily waters at its facilities in the five affected states.

"The environmental compliance plan that Exxon-Mobil has agreed to in this multi-district plea agreement is an important step in protecting migratory birds in these five states," said John C. Cruden, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division.

"We are all responsible for protecting our wildlife, even the largest of corporations," said Colorado U.S. Attorney David M. Gaouette. "An important part of this case is the implementation of an environmental compliance plan that will help prevent future migratory bird deaths."

The Migratory Bird Treaty Act, enacted in 1918, implements this country’s commitments under avian protection treaties with Great Britain (for Canada), Mexico, Japan and Russia. The Act creates a misdemeanor criminal sanction for the unpermitted taking of listed species by any means and in any manner regardless of fault. The maximum penalty for a corporate taking under the MBTA is $15,000, or twice the gross gain or loss resulting from the offense, and five years probation. The birds killed in the five cases include ducks, grebes, ibis, passerines, shorebirds, owls, martin and a hawk. None of these species is listed as endangered or threatened under federal law.

Migratory birds often land on open wastewater ponds at oil and gas facilities and become coated with, or ingest, fatal amounts of hydrocarbons discharged into the water during drilling or production operations. Such killings can be prevented by scrubbing the water of contaminants before discharge, removing the ponds, placing an obstruction such as netting or plastic "bird balls" over the water to prevent contact, or installing commercially-manufactured electronic hazing devices which detect incoming flights of migratory birds and deploy noise and lights to scare them away from the area. Exxon-Mobil’s environmental compliance plan will employ these techniques, tailored to each facility, to prevent future mortality.

The cases were investigated by Special Agents of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and are being prosecuted by Senior Trial Attorney Robert S. Anderson of the Justice Department’s Environmental Crimes Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Carey of the District of Colorado.


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This article was taken from the Department of Justice website. The press release, posted here in its entirety, may be found at http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2009/August/09-enrd-795.html . For more news from the Department of Justice, go to www.usdoj.gov .

Nelson brings oil fight to Panhandle

There comes a time when common sense needs to take the reins away from greed. It appears that Florida Senator Bill Nelson is again trying to grab those reins.

"I don’t think Florida should have to trash its coastline and its $65 billion economy just so big oil can increase its profit margin," Nelson said in a statement. He planned to stop this morning at the Florida Aquarium in Tampa before heading to Tallahassee, Panama City and Pensacola on Monday.

According to an article from Florida Trend, The Aquarium is "home to some of the state’s marine life from the common to the most rare. He chose the aquarium in part because it showcases the richness of Florida’s environment and way of life that will face destruction from offshore drilling in the Gulf."

Nelson, who has fought against drilling in the Gulf, spoke by phone with Florida Governor Charlie Crist about the proposed drilling. Nelson has said that he "will not only argue environmental damage but also a national security angle," stating that drilling will reduce "the last remaining unfettered training range" for military pilots.

"The operative policy and law of the United States is to use much of the eastern Gulf of Mexico as the last remaining training range for our military pilots," he said. "Give that up to the oil boys and you sacrifice national security."

Might I add this: Right on, Bill. Florida needs all the voices of reason we can muster.


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Information for this article was taken from both Florida Trend and TampaBay.com's The Buzz. To read more on this, please check out Florida Trend at http://floridatrend.com/article.asp?aID=51240, as well as TampaBay.com's The Buzz at http://blogs.tampabay.com/buzz/bill_nelson/.

Biologists Call For Network Of Protected Rivers

By now, most of us are beginning to wake up to the fact that we're all interconnected to the natural world around us: screw with Mother Nature, our actions are liable to come back and bite us. Anyone remember Love Canal? ("Quick, honey, Google up Love Canal, would you?") How about Hinkley, California? (Hint: Hollywood made a movie about it, starring Julia Roberts as single mother, Erin Brockovich.) Does anyone in St. Petersburg, Florida recognize the name Raytheon?

Then there's the fact that we've managed to put an obscene number of species on the endangered list. Some of them, we've even managed to push over the edge. (A good site to check out is that of Endangered Species International: http://www.endangeredspeciesinternational.org/overview.html?gclid=CKjcnYmk05oCFQq3sgod6RP82Q .)

I ran across this article today from Science Daily; I feel that it is important.

Biologists Call For Network Of Protected Rivers

ScienceDaily (2009-05-22) -- Scientists have used the Guadiana River basin, in which 92% of the species are under threat, as a reference point to measure the loss of aquatic biodiversity and its conservation value. A new study reveals that the state of fragmentation of Iberian river basins is “seriously endangering” the freshwater fish that inhabit them, and highlights the need to create new protected aquatic reserves. ... > read full article