William Arguelles
Spiro Alexandratos
Seminar 3
September 22, 2012
Opinion Paper 3
I really hope you keep up with this current trend in class of showing us the utterly ridiculous things giant corporations do to the environment. Last week’s GE and PCB thing had me giggling all class, mainly because it was so blatantly wrong and that NY Times article sounds so much like a satire piece I still have difficulty believing its real. Honestly, what I’m learning in class sometimes sounds like stuff I’ve heard in my creative writing classes. I have suspend my disbelief at some of these things, mainly because I want to believe that no one could be this ridiculous. I’m really having trouble writing this paper, and last week’s paper, because I just can’t wrap my mind around these actions.
But enough recap, onto this week’s lecture on Exxon Mobil and their polluting of the Arthur Kill. Here’s what I seemed to have gotten from your lecture: In a brilliant business move, Mobil opened up a barge cleaning service in the Arthur Kill where ships coming into NY harbor could be cleaned up. It’s a smart business move and honestly makes a lot of sense. That seemed to be the last bit that made sense though, as Mobil’s disposal of the chemicals used to clean the barges was wonderfully incompetent. Mobil dug two “ponds” near Arthur Kill, and dumped all the nasty chemicals into them.
I have several questions for the people who decided this was a good idea; Why would you take the chemicals you washed off the ships because they were nasty and shouldn’t get into the water, and put them right next to the water and think “yeah, that’s better”? That’d be like building a sand castle in a tsunami and expecting it to last. How wouldn’t the chemicals get into the water? I mean, sure, it’s a more “sound” strategy then the GE “let’s just dump it in the river and hope for the best” plan, but that’s really not saying much. Of course it would get into the Arthur Kill. I bet a six year old could figure that one out.
But that’s not even the most ridiculous factor, no that honor would go to Mobil’s wonderful accounting of the toxic chemicals in the Arthur Kill. First, the setting; The EPA had caught Mobil dumping benzene, a hazardous volatile chemical, into the Arthur Kill without a permit on three separate occasions. The EPA tested the water and found that Mobil’s dumping was twenty times the legal limit, which Mobil completely denied. Understandably, the EPA demanded to see the records Mobil had which proved they were only dumping the legal limit. So Mobil, taking a page from literally every Mafia story ever, gave the EPA the “edited” testing data and records to make it legal. In other words, Mobil cooked the books and committed fraud. The EPA’s response to this obviously criminal action? Well, of course the EPA did the logical thing and told Mobil to stop dumping into the ponds. Mobil agreed and just started dumping directly into the Arthur Kill.
No one was charged with fraud or saw any jail time. Hell, it took them three years to file a court case and in 2001, Mobil pleaded guilty and only had to pay 11 Million in fines. Sounds like a lot, except when you figure in the profits Mobil made globally over this eight year period was approximately 300 billion dollars, that’s about 0.003% of their profits, which is probably less then the amount they pay to the people who dump the benzene. I don’t understand why no one saw jail time or was at least charged with fraud. I get that in America, white-collar crime is woefully under-prosecuted, but handing a government agency altered books is clearly illegal. I think that’s literally what tipped the government off to Enron. Someone should have been found guilty of fraud; it’s really as simple as that.
