Offshore oil & gas facilities in the Gulf of Mexico discharge Produced Water into the Gulf of Mexico. The Congress has set limits on what this discharged produced water can contain in the form of oil , grease and chemicals.There are currently some 5,600 platforms in the gulf of Mexico, of which 3,600 are still producing oil and gas.
In a recent federal court case United States of America versus W&T Offshore, W & T was convicted of falsifying the water samples and violating the discharged produced water, Sub contractors for W&T who were employees of WoodGroupPSN , actually committed the offense , however were taught the practice and mentored by W & T employees on how to use common every day coffee filters on-board the offshore facility to remove illegal limits of oil , grease and chemicals from the water sample submitted for regulatory testing.
Some of these W & T employees came from other major oil companies like Aamco, Texaco, Exxon, Chevron, BP, Shell, who have now moved off of the Outer Continental Shelf and into deepwater leaving their employees to be hired on by the independents like Stone Energy, ATP Oil & Gas, Apache, BHP, Newfield, and others, bringing with them their secret practice.
The practice of filtering water samples for testing by regulatory agencies has been utilized by offshore oil company employees and contract employees since the beginning of the offshore oil industry. Federal laws have a loophole in them which allow the personnel on-board the offshore facilities to catch the sample and doctor it before submitting it to a testing laboratory.
I am sure you have heard the term " having a fox in the hen house " , " giving the thief the keys to the house " , " leaving the house wide open with no one home " . This is exactly what happened when Oil & Gas Lobbyist convinced congress to allow for " self testing "
Currently of the 3,500 still active platforms offshore , 80% of these are falsifying the samples given to regulators. What this means is that the regulated pollution allowed into the Gulf of Mexico on a monthly basis is 28 ppm, When offshore personnel take the polluted sample and criminally filter it , they take discharged produced water in quantities of 40 , 80 , 100 and even higher in ppm's and alter it down to samples of less than 28 , most times 5 ppm.
This gives regulators false information about what is truthfully happening in the Gulf of Mexico , which in turn gives scientist false information,
In Truth the Gulf of Mexico is being polluted on a scale of vastly greater unknown quantities than ever imagined to the government , scientific community and the public at large.
Congress needs to put some teeth into the Clean Water Act mandating that federal authorities take random unannounced sampling of corporations who have produced water permits annually and test accordingly for accuracy and compare that against the self testing which has been done by the employees of the corporation to ensure quality control , accountability and honesty.
The laws or our country are made to protect the people and the environment , the Clean Water Act is failing the people and the environment in doing this by allowing this loop hole in the offshore industry.
Source: Examiner
Image courtesy of NASA (CC BY 2.0)
