The environment in the news wenesday, 19 March 2008
Ship's pilot charged in Bay Area oil disaster
Download 451.28 Kb.
|
- Navigate this page:
- Lawmakers probe potential EPA conflicts
Ship's pilot charged in Bay Area oil disaster2,000 birds died after container ship hit bridge tower on Nov. 7MSNBC Mon., March. 17, 2008 WASHINGTON - The pilot of a ship that spilled thousands of gallons of oil into San Francisco Bay in November was charged by federal prosecutors Monday with criminal negligence and breaking environmental laws. Capt. John Cota faces as much as 18 months in jail and more than $100,000 in fines if convicted of the misdemeanor charges, including harming migrant birds protected by the government and violating the Clean Water Act. Cota was not taken into custody, according to court papers. He was at the helm of the container ship Cosco Busan when it struck a fender protecting a support tower beneath the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge on its way to South Korea on Nov. 7. The ship emptied 53,000 gallons of oil into the fragile bay, killing thousands of birds and closing more than a dozen beaches. The “criminal information” filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco accuses Cota of failing to safely guide the container ship safely through the bay. Specifically, the government says Cota failed to use the ship’s radar as he approached the Bay Bridge; failed to adequately review the proposed course with the captain; and failed to use navigational aids that might have helped him avoid disaster. “These failures led to the Cosco Busan striking the bridge and spilling the oil,” the Justice Department said in a statement.
He told investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board, for example, that he relied upon his radar when fog closed in on the ship that morning. But, he said, the radar became “distorted” and “unreliable” as he attempted to navigate the bay, so he switched to the ship’s electronic charting system. Cota also told investigators he reviewed the electronic charts with the Chinese captain before departing. Several weeks after the crash, the Justice Department sued, accusing Cota and the ship’s owners of violating the National Marine Sanctuary Act, the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 and the Park System Resource Protection Act. The suit accuses the defendants of “fault, negligence and breach of federal safety and operating regulations.” The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages to compensate taxpayers for the federal response to the spill. It said the sum of those damages “is not known and shall be established according to proof at the time of trial.” As a result of the Cosco Busan spill, an estimated 2,000 birds died, including federally endangered brown pelicans and the federally threatened marbled murrelet. The losses also included Western grebes. Rush to judge alleged Cota’s attorney, Jeff Bornstein, accused the government of bringing charges before the NTSB concluded its investigation of the crash. The NTSB’s final report containing a “probable cause” is not expected until the end of this year. “Their decision to bring the charges at this time surprises us, given the fact that the NTSB is still continuing to really focus on exactly what happened and all the factors that are involved in that,” Bornstein said. Bornstein said he was not aware of any similar prosecutions that came “before a finding of exactly what occurred.” “This is something that concerns us,” he said in a telephone interview. In a separate prepared statement, Bornstein said: “We are hopeful that our dialogue with the government will continue, but we are prepared to vigorously defend against these criminal allegations. We strongly believe that once all of the evidence is heard, a jury will find in Captain Cota’s favor.” Cota suffers from sleep apnea and to ward of drowsiness was taking a prescription drug whose known side effects include impaired judgment, officials with knowledge of the investigations told The Associated Press in January. There is no mention of the drug issue in the criminal information. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23678514/ Lawmakers probe potential EPA conflictsEight scientists on panels also have industry ties to chemicals studiedMSNBC Monday March. 17, 2008 WASHINGTON - A House committee opened an investigation Monday into potential conflicts of interest in scientific panels that advise the Environmental Protection Agency. The House Energy and Commerce Committee cited the case of eight scientists who were consultants or members of EPA science advisory panels assessing the human health effects of toxic chemicals while getting research support from the chemical industry on the same chemicals they were examining. In two cases, EPA advisers were employed by companies that made or worked with manufacturers of the chemicals being evaluated. the committee said. Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., the committee's chairman, said such conflicts appear to be in stark contrast to EPA's decision last summer to remove a public health scientist and expert in toxicology, from a panel examining the health impacts of a flame retardant because of critical comments she made about the chemical. The American Chemistry Council, the industry trade group, had called for the removal of Deborah Rice, a toxicologist from Maine, as chairman of an independent EPA panel assessing the health risks from "deca", a flame retardant in electronic equipment, after she urged the Maine state legislature to ban the chemical. "The routine use of chemical industry employees and representatives in EPA's scientific review process, together with EPA's dismissal of Dr. Rice raises serious questions with regard to EPA's conflict of interest rules and their application," said Dingell in a letter Monday to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson. Rice, an employee of Maine's Department of Health and Human Services, was never alleged to have any monetary interest associated with deca and her dismissal "seems to argue that scientific expertise ... is a basis for disqualification," the letter continued. "We will be reviewing the letter and we will respond appropriately," said EPA spokesman Timothy Lyons. The letter, also signed by Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., chairman of the committee's investigations subcommittee, demanded documents related to Rice's ouster, as well as records related the appointment of scientists with chemical industry ties. Rice's removal, as chairman of the deca chemical review board "does not seem sensible on its face" given the EPA's acceptance of scientists with ties to the chemical industry and even to companies who make the chemicals being reviewed, the congressmen wrote. Among the appointments questioned:
The House committee questioned a case where a consultant to an EPA review panel, promoted his research on a chemical while he also prepared the chemical industry's public comments on the cancer-causing potential of the same chemical. Also cited was a case where a scientist who, while a consultant to an EPA review panel, promoted his own industry-supported research arguing the chemical was not a carcinogen. In light of Rice's removal, Dingell and Stupak asked the EPA about the appointment of a Harvard University epidemiologist to a recently convened panel reviewing the possible cancer risk from acrylamide, an industrial chemical used as a thickener but also found in some foods. They said that the epidemiologist on a number of occasions has said the exposure to acrylamide through food does not appear to pose a cancer risk. The examples cited by the House committee were included in a report last month by the Environmental Working Group, a Washington-based advocacy group, that said its investigation found that among seven external EPA review panels, it found 17 reviewers with potential conflicts of interest.
Directory: cpi -> briefs briefs -> The environment in the news briefs -> The environment in the news briefs -> The environment in the news briefs -> The environment in the news briefs -> The environment in the news briefs -> The environment in the news briefs -> The environment in the news briefs -> The environment in the news briefs -> The environment in the news Download 451.28 Kb. Share with your friends:
|