Dear Editor,
In your August 20, 2020 edition, you carried an article by Marcelle Thomas captioned, `EPA to file historic lawsuit against Exxon over fines’. The said article stated inter-alia:
“ExxonMobil’s refusal to pay two fines to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will see the oil major for the first time being taken to court by the agency which yesterday sounded a warning that it will not be intimidated.”
“The spills of the non-toxic, biodegradable fluids were as little as 2.5 liters in one instance and were reported to the EPA in a timely manner. They caused no impact to the environment,”
I wish to state for the record that I am not a lawyer, however I am an engineer and a Certified Lubrication Specialist. As such I am amazed that the Guyana EPA would attempt to sue an operator for
spilling 2.5 liters of biodegradable (EAL) hydraulic fluid in the sea.
Environmentally Acceptable
Lubricants (EALs) are defined as biodegradable, non-bio accumulative and minimally harmful for aquatic environment (like fish, seaweeds etc)
As far as I am aware, Guyana has no environmental standard which requires vessels to use Environmental Acceptable Lubricants in its waters. This means that ExxonMobil is applying the USA “Vessel General Permit” (VGP) framework, which came into effect in December 2013 and stipulates that biologically degradable oils, or “Environmentally Acceptable Lubricants”(EAL), must be used at all oil to sea interfaces, where technically feasible. All ships with a total length of 24 meters or more that enter US waters must observe the new environmental standard.
Based on the foregoing, I hope that the Guyana EPA understands that they cannot hope to win a case by proving that spilling 2.5 liters of Environmentally Acceptable Lubricant would be harmful to the environment. This would be the equivalent of trying to prove that 33 is not the majority of 65, and we all know how the CCJ ruled in that case.
I want to make it pellucid that I am not trying to defend ExxonMobil, but rather hoping to
save the taxpayer some badly needed cash. The EPA needs to concentrate on more
important matters such as the indiscriminate flaring of associated gases.
Yours faithfully,
Tara Singh