Alaska News

BP critic Chuck Hamel is at probation hearing in spirit

If the granddaddy of BP critics was feeling better, Chuck Hamel would probably be having fun at the epic probation hearing going on in downtown Anchorage, which saw its fifth day of testimony Monday.

Five days of testimony about alarm systems, paraffin buildup and ice plugs, hydrological systems and wetlands, L2, L3, and L5. Jungle gyms, common lines and looped lines. Meters and flow. On and on. And the hearing might not end anytime soon. The federal criminal probation officer, Mary Barnes, said she's been with the office for 27 years and this is the longest probation hearing she can remember.

Federal prosecutors seek to revoke BP's criminal probation, which it's been on and off of since 2001. The government says BP can't be trusted. It says that the company is a "recidivist offender and repeated violator of environmental laws and regulations." And a 2009 spill in the Lisburne field on Alaska's North Slope, while BP was on probation for another spill, proves it, prosecutors say.

BP is also being accused of violating the Clean Water Act.

The details may be different in this case, though. In 2009, it was an ice plug caught in a frozen line that caused a rupture and subsequent spill; in other cases it was dysfunctional valves. In yet another spill, back in 2006, corroded lines BP was responsible for ended up leaking more than 200,000 gallons of crude into the sensitive ecosystem of Arctic Alaska's North Slope.

In Chuck Hamel's mind, all the spills, violations and subsequent punishment can be pretty much summed up in seven words: BP's a company that skirts the rules.

It'll all catch up with the company someday, Hamel said. "Something will happen up there. Something like Texas City," he added, referring to the 2005 refinery accident that killed 15 people and injured 170 more.

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Hamel, now 81, once himself was in the oil business, owning oil leases and shipping Alaska crude. In the early 1980s, when he suspected Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. (of which BP is the majority owner), lied about water in his oil shipments, Hamel turned on the industry. He appointed himself the unpaid voice for oil workers fed up with problems in the state's biggest business -- a whistleblower for whistleblowers.

And just as General Motors hired private detectives to discredit auto industry critic Ralph Nader in the 1960s, Hamel found himself a target of an oil-industry spy operation.

Although he lost on his watery oil complaint, Hamel, with the help of whistleblowers, successfully spotlighted Alyeska's water and air pollution, years of neglected maintenance, as well as other environmental issues. Alyeska hired private detectives to rummage through his trash and eavesdrop on his phone calls and snatch his mail. But instead of discrediting Hamel, Alyeska leaders bruised their own reputation when the snooping became public.

A federal judge described the spying as ''reminiscent of Nazi Germany.'' And Congress cracked down on Alyeska. It called for stiffer oversight and a government review of pipeline operations, a review that unearthed thousands of problems.

The national media lionized him as the whistleblower folk hero who took on one of the world's most powerful industries and won.

Alyeska and its oil company owners spent hundreds of millions of dollars in the late 1980s through the 1990s fixing problems that Hamel helped expose at their Valdez tanker port and along the 800-mile trans-Alaska pipeline system. All told, it's estimated that Hamel forced the industry to spend about $1 billion in safety-related improvements on TAPS.

Hamel called that sum "peanuts."

But that was just the start. He also actively worked with media, passing along tips to reporters from disgruntled North Slope workers who were scared of losing their jobs if they came forward. Hamel's played a part in nearly every criminal incident BP has been involved in since the 1980s.

But he's fallen under hard times lately, and has been more concerned with his own health than the health of BP. Hamel's had a heart attack, and pneumonia. He's had kidney stones removed as well as a tumor the size of and shape of a "small football," he said. Hamel and his wife sold their Virginia home and now reside in Washington state.

Hamel insists he'll be "up and running" soon, however, and promises more mischief against the company.

Is it possible, however, that all of BP's woes, in Alaska and elsewhere, have forced the company to change? Is it possible that when he was sick, the company transformed into a different one?

Hamel doesn't think so, but BP Alaska spokesman Steve Rinehart said that testimony in the current probation hearing confirms that his company's systems are working.

Tony Jackson, a witness for BP, is the lead operator for the company at Lisburne, where the 2009 oil spill occurred. Following that spill -- when management seemed to be focusing more on the spill's repercussions than on what was going on in the plant -- Jackson sent out an email to his managers saying that the operation was in "unsafe condition"; that the problems "elevated overall risk" and that management did not adequately address the concerns.

Learn more: Timeline of BP's problems in Alaska

In the email Jackson also cited numerous pieces of equipment -- 14 pieces in all -- that were either absent or in disrepair. He said that the equipment was necessary to keep the site going, and without immediate attention, Lisburne might need to be shut down.

But Jackson stuck up for his company in his testimony Monday, claiming he was told by management that he did the right thing by bringing these concerns to their attention. He characterized management as responsive, and further, that they got him pretty much all the equipment he needed.

Jackson intimated that he might have overacted. "I want things yesterday," he said. He admitted that he had been frustrated with management over the lack of equipment but, "six hours at 38 (degrees) below-zero" exacerbated that frustration.

He said most of the issues at Lisburne have been fixed, although vent-like devices, called louvers, which stop the spread of fires, are still being worked on. Too, information that might have helped prevent, or at least diagnose the cause of the 2009 spill wasn't passed on to him.

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Phil Dziubinski, who got hold of the email Jackson sent, testified earlier in the hearing that among the reasons for his separation from BP after 27 years was, simply, that he'd done his job by calling attention to safety concerns. Dziubinski, a whistleblower against BP in the 2009 spill, was safety compliance and ethics officer for the oil company at the time of the spill.

Hamel wasn't familiar with Dziubinski's story, specifically, he said during an interview this week. But the whistleblower's story is a familiar one, nonetheless, Hamel said.

The hearing continues Tuesday in the federal courthouse in Anchorage.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amanda(at)alaskadispatch.com

Correction: The original version of the story said that BP is being charged with a violation of the Clean Water Act, which is incorrect. The government believes that the company violated the Act, but this is a probation revocation hearing. Any findings by the judge will only be used to make a decision on BP's probation.

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