When ExxonMobil's Baton Rouge chemical plant asked the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality for a new emissions permit, it was a safe bet the Louisiana Bucket Brigade would be right behind, bleating of potential calamity. Bucket Brigade boasts that "its media work has resulted in more than 700 stories since 2000," and that total is at least 701 now as NOLA.com duly quoted the ubiquitous outfit.
Not about emissions, however. Exxon is expanding and updating its Baton Rouge operations, and the Bucket Brigade raised flags about "a lack of knowledge" regarding the health issues involved with the chemicals, a concern so potentially expansive it looks suspiciously like a fundraising slogan rather than science.
But emissions per se could hardly trigger an alarm because, as the story made clear, the new emissions request "does not exceed current pollutant limitations set by (DEQ) or the Environmental Protection Agency."
That is, no goal posts are being moved here. And, while the creation of petrochemicals can never be scrubbed free of risk, it is neither desirable nor feasible that the world try operating without them. Consequently, the companies involved make their grotesque profits, paying millions in dividends to retired teachers and the like, all while complying with the ever expanding regulatory apparatus that both polices and feeds off the industry.
That apparatus is properly busy. The steady ooze of oil and money doesn't always attract angels, and one hardly needs the examples of a tanker captain sleeping one off or a company paying $4 billion to settle criminal charges ranging all the way to manslaughter to prove it.
So taxpayers spend billions to have the DEQ and the EPA as diligent cops, a job at which they, sadly and sometimes all-too-humanly, fall short. Still, the matter is hot-button and emotional enough that an armada of outside groups also gets involved, presumably using private money to keep pressure on lawmakers. Their causes range from the depletion of rain forests to the plight of a previously unknown insect; from pursuing real-life bad guys, to making sure no imaginary bad guys provide new and better sources of oil.
One assumes, however, those efforts are privately financed, and that donors can -- and should -- make sure their money is spent saving whales and not sending board directors on a cruise. In the case of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, however, that assumption is only half true: by all accounts, the group does an admirable job of spending its money on projects, not salaries.
On the private half of the equation, however, it turns out the Bucket Brigade's donors are not comprised exclusively of committed fellow environmental travelers. Rather, as the group's current charitable status makes clear, it is "an organization that normally receives a substantial part of its support from a governmental unit or from the general public."
In this case, the money flows to the Bucket Brigade from the EPA's "Office of Environmental Justice and Tribal Affairs." And what does that cash produce? That's what the DEQ wants to know.
The Bucket Brigade maintains -- and widely circulates in fliers and promotional tools -- its own numbers for the number of violations or accidents that occur at Louisiana's chemical plants and refineries. The problem is they do not match up with the DEQ, which the Bucket Brigade claims is its source.
"In their 'Common Ground' reports we can't figure out how they get their numbers," DEQ spokesman Rodney Mallett said. "They are stretching the truth from time to time."
For example, a Bucket Brigade flyer on the ExxonMobil Baton Rouge report claims 778 accidents were reported there between 2005 and June 1, 2012. But the DEQ has only 202 such incidents reported. The inflated numbers provide a misleadingly alarming picture, according to regulators.
"Treating even a minor spill as a major accident is a misrepresentation of what is actually occurring," Mallett said. As further evidence, Mallett said DEQ data shows ExxonMobil had 28 releases last year of "reportable quantity," along with 73 "courtesy calls" from which the Bucket Brigade appears to have extrapolated 103 "accidents."
The DEQ sought some clarification on just what the hell the Bucket Brigade was doing at the end of 2009, when it wrote then-EPA Region 6 administrator Alfredo Armendariz. Armendariz, one recalls, was the regulatory prefect who raised hosannas or eyebrows by approvingly citing a policy of random crucifixion.
Specifically, the DEQ asked, "who at the EPA monitors data released in reports that are funded by EPA grants," and "who at the EPA reviewed the data in this report prior to its release to ensure its accuracy?"
The EPA's Office of Environmental Justice and Tribal Affairs responded in high-hat fashion on Jan. 15, 2010, essentially saying it stands by what looks a lot like regulatory double-dipping.
James Varney can be reached at jvarney@nola.com or 504.826.3748.
