Email to Rex - Spring Blossoms - 2014-03-31a

8/12/2019 Email to Rex - Spring Blossoms - 2014-03-31a

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/email-to-rex-spring-blossoms-2014-03-31a 1/8

Mr. Rex Tillerson, Shane Steward, and others who read Mr. Tillerson's mail and emails:

Thursday, a friend emailed me a link to an article about the lawsuit filed by the SoutheastLouisiana Flood Protection Authority-East against ExxonMobil Corporation and 96 other "oil-and-gascompanies responsible for decades of operations exacerbating coastal erosion that exposes inlandresidents to more flood risk." I hope Exxon Mobil will be a true and responsible Corporate Citizenand pay the piper.

With the principles you espouse, you could take the leading role and compel Congress. How? Act!For two years now, since my March 25, 2012, letter to you, I have believed you can pull it off —doing what Congress and the President have failed to do — create a 'de facto' carbon fee. Why?

If there is even a remote likelihood that a pipeline rupture or climate disruption could despoil thePlatte River or Missouri River or any habitat that has been used by billions of migratory birds (likethe sandhill cranes or snow geese) for millions of years, you could consider not risking it. You couldchange the paradigm so even the smallest risk is unfathomable ... zero-tolerance! To me, thisapplies not only to wildlife and their habitat, but to all of humanity and our precious biosphere.You have it within you!

Stand TALL — get on the right side of history. Take the lead and guide your Board of Directorsand the entire hydrocarbon industry to a new path. Retiring one refinery would be not onlysymbolic, but a real start in reducing CO2 emissions. I am just asking you to initiate a globalrefinery retirement schedule and not stand by idly waiting for Congress to adopt a too-little too-late revenue-neutral carbon fee.

Sincerely yours,Doug Grandt

Douglas Grandt <[email protected]>Rex Tillerson <[email protected]>Shane Steward <[email protected]>

If you don't pay as you go, you must pay the piper in the end

8 Attachments, 3.6 MB

http://bit.ly/standTALL

http://bit.ly/standTALL



By Bob Marshall, Staff writer July 23, 2013 8:51pm

Science to be key factor in lawsuit against oil andgas companies for coastal loss

The Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority is expected to file suit Wednesday against more

than 100 oil and gas companies for contributing to the disappearance of Louisiana’s wetlands. The

lawsuit argues that decades of drilling, dredging and extracting has destroyed wetlands that once

provided a cushion against hurricane storm surge. With the Gulf creeping ever closer, the agency

must spend more to protect metro New Orleans.

Over the last seven months, three New Orleans-area law firms spent thousands of hours researchinghow to do something that many have talked about, but never tried — hold oil and gas companiesaccountable for increasing the flood risk to the metro area by destroying coastal wetlands.

In the end, the lawyers settled on a centuries-old legal concept. But they know the success of that choice will depend on the science supporting it.

“If they believe the expert scientific testimony given by our witnesses, then we win the lawsuit,” saidGladstone “Glad” Jones of Jones, Swanson, Huddell and Garrison, which has a successful track recordof suing oil companies.

“That’s what this will all come down to – the science.”

The lawsuit, expected to be filed Wednesday by the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East , alleges that the companies violated their permits when they did not “maintain and restore” thewetlands involved, and that their projects violated the federal River and Harbors Act of 1899 by reducingthe effectiveness of federal levees.

But the heart of the case rests on a centuries-old legal principle called “servitude of drainage.” Thatdoctrine stipulates that someone is liable for damages if he does something to increase the flow ofwater on another’s property. The courts have ruled the properties do not have to be contiguous.

The Flood Protection Authority claims that decades of drilling, dredging and extraction destroyedwetlands that once provided a cushion against hurricane storm surge. With that cushion reduced, stormsurge has increased in the parishes under its jurisdiction, leading to a higher risk of flooding.

As a result, the Flood Protection Authority says it has to spend more to protect people and property inthe metro area.

http://www.nola.com/environment/index.ssf/2013/07/east_bank_levee_authority_to_a.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

http://thelensnola.org/author/bob-marshall/



Devon Boutte ( animated images for 1901-1920, 1920-1940, 1940-1960, 1960-1980, and 1980-2007 are shown below)

This visualization shows the proliferation of oil and gas wells in southeast Louisiana from 1901 to 2007. It's based on astate database of the 230,000 wells in the state, most of which are in coastal Louisiana. It was created by Devon Boutteduring a graduate landscape architecture class at Louisiana State University. Most of these sites are connected by canalsdredged through the wetlands.

The suit asks the companies to repair the damage by bringing the landscape back to its originalcondition or, if that isn’t possible, to defray the agency’s rising costs.

“No one denies – not even the oil industry – that the canals they dredged helped cause this problem,”said John Barry, vice president of the Flood Protection Authority.

“Now, people will say there are other causes, and we’re not denying that,” he said. “The levees on theriver, obviously, are a major cause. But the federal government built those levees, and they’ve beenspending billions of dollars on better flood protection and coastal restoration projects in this area.

“What we’re saying to the oil companies is, ‘It’s time for you to step up now for the damage you did.’”

The suit names nearly 100 oil and gas companies as defendants.

RESEARCH LINKS CANALS, COASTAL EROSION

To win its case, the Flood Protection Authority plans to use years of scientific research to prove that theoil industry impacted drainage across its jurisdiction – the metro area east of the Mississippi River.

Plenty of science is available.

For decades, researchers have been documenting the relationship between canal dredging and thestate’s loss of almost 2,000 square miles of coastal wetlands. The state Coastal Protection andRestoration Authority, using research from the U.S. Geological Survey, says almost 10,000 miles ofcanals have been dredged for oil and gas. Many researchers believe the figure is considerably higher

http://bit.ly/lensNOLA23Jul13



2,000 Square miles of coast lost 10,000 Miles of canals dredged inwetlands

because the agency’s numbers rely mostly on permits, and there wasn’t a reliable permitting systemuntil passage of the federal Clean Water Act in 1972.

Canals have been singled out as a primary villain of the land loss because their impacts hit several layersof the wetlands ecosystem.

Gene Turner, Louisiana State University’s Distinguished Research Master and Shell Endowed Chair inOceanography and Wetlands Studies, has been quantifying canal impacts for decades.

“You have the direct loss of marsh caused when you dredge these canals converting wetlands to open water,” said Turner, who has reported that the average oil field canal is 12 feet deep and more than 50feet wide.

“But then they took the material they dredged to dig the canals and deposited it on the bank, creating a

spoil levee about eight to 12 feet high and 15 feet wide or wider. That’s more direct loss.”Turner said his studies show the direct loss of wetlands from the canals and their spoil banks comes to16 percent of the 2,000 square miles lost since the 1930s.

However, the indirect impacts of the canals resulted in an even larger area of wetlands being convertedto open water, Turner and other researchers have reported. Some of those impacts include:

The drowning of entire sections of wetlands when water became trapped between spoil levees

Changes in currents that increase bank erosion

Disruption of beneficial flooding that could help spread sediments to keep wetlands above sea level

Wakes caused by recreational and commercial boats

Turner and other scientists estimate that 35 to 42 percent of the state’s catastrophic land loss could betraced to oil and gas canals. He said a more recent analysis of land loss in the Barataria Basin, soon to bepublished, places that figure at close to 85 percent.

“Some of the numbers I have place it as high as 90 percent overall,” he said. “But whether it’s 30, 45 or80 percent, there’s a clear relationship between the number of canals in an area and the amount of landloss. That relationship is undeniable.”

DRILLING A FACTOR IN SUBSIDENCE

Canals are not be the only oil and gas industry activity the suit will raise. Research has also shown adirect link between land loss and the extraction of oil and gas from below Louisiana’s wetlands.

Alex Kolker, a researcher and professor at the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium in Cocodrie,La., has published papers showing that subsidence increases, and more wetlands are converted to open water , as oil and gas production in wetlands increases.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2011GL049458/abstract



“It’s a pretty straight correlation,” Kolker said. “The short version of the story is gas and oil contained inrocks are under pressure, and when you remove those substances, you create a vacuum, whicheventually is filled by surrounding materials.”

LAND LOSS WELL-DOCUMENTED

The Flood Protection Authority will have no trouble using state records to show that thousands of wellshave been drilled in its jurisdiction, that those wells pulled millions of gallons of oil and cubic feet of gasfrom the subsurface, and that companies dredged thousands of miles of canals to reach those spots andmove their raw products to collection points and refineries.

The Flood Protection Authority is likely to use published science to prove that those activitiescontributed to the loss of storm-buffering wetlands in its jurisdiction, which has been significant.

U.S. Geological Survey

The red area represents the land lost already or projected to disappear between 1932 and 2050.

In 2002 the USGS reported that between 1932 and 1990, Plaquemines Parish lost 12 percent of its wetlands, including half of the Bird’s Foot Delta, and St. Bernard Parish lost 17 percent.

The East Orleans Land Bridge, between lakes Pontchartrain and Borgne and key to keeping surge out of

http://lacoast.gov/landloss/2050_2R_missbig.pdf



lakeside communities in Orleans, St. Tammany, Tangipahoa and the river parishes, lost 17.6 percent ofits area.

For years the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and other public agencies have reported that a 1.3-mile wide band of marsh can reduce storm surge by as much as one foot.

So it will be the Flood Protection Authority’s task to prove that the science shows canals and oil and gasproduction removed those wetlands, changing the drainage in its area, causing higher storm surges topush into the metro area – and forcing it to spend billions to prevent Hurricane Katrina-like disastersfrom happening.

“We think the science is clear,” said Barry, of the Flood Protection Authority.

If the jury agrees with the science, Jones said, the authority will win its case.

READ THE LAWSUIT


Oil and Gas Wells: 1901-1920 ( click here to see animated image )















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Email to Rex - Spring Blossoms - 2014-03-31a