Exxon ignores pleas from 50,000 people to halt damaging activities that threaten rare whales

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Exxon ignores pleas from 50,000 people to halt damaging activities that threaten rare whales04/08/2009 10:03:56 Western Gray whales existence is threatened by Exxon intransigence. Photo credit Greenpeace/Igor Gavrilov

 

Exxon Valdez Disaster - Has Exxon learned nothing?

When the Exxon Valdez, whose captain was a known alcoholic, hit rocks in 1989, spilling some 11 million gallons of oil into Prince William Sound, the Exxon chairman, Lawrence G Rawl, couldn't be bothered to visit the scene for several weeks as he didn't consider it important enough. Since then Exxon has had a name as a company who very much put the environment second to pofits.

More lip serviceTheir attitude to the plight of the Western Gray whale appears to show that they have not changed their ways. The Exxon website waxes lyrical about their 'Biodiversity Conservation' policies. The following is taken from their website.

Biodiversity conservationExxonMobil believes that biodiversity conservation can be balanced with economic development through careful management of environmental impacts. Our sites incorporate biodiversity protection through their efforts to limit impacts in sensitive areas. Our Environmental Business Planning (EBP)NaN efforts are designed to identify environmental and biodiversity protection objectives and actions that are specific to each location. Our mitigation actions around the world include modifying engineering design, and construction and operating practices to protect specific species and sensitive habitats; undertaking extensive reclamation efforts to restore degraded sites to environmentally acceptable conditions; and participating in initiatives that enhance the wildlife and habitat attributes of our properties.

If Exxon believe that, why don't they practise it?

Is it time to launch a boycott of all Exxon products around the world? Western Gray whales plight ignored by Exxon - Is it time to boycott Exxon products?August 2009. More than 50,000 people have demanded that oil and gas giant ExxonMobil and several other companies suspend damaging industrial activities that harm the Western Gray whale, one of the world's most critically endangered whales. The thousands of signatures from around the world were delivered on petitions to the CEO of ExxonMobil in Irving, Texas, and Exxon's Moscow headquarters, at the same time that the first whales were arriving in their summer feeding grounds - the area of Exxon's Sakhalin I oil and gas project - at northeast Sakhalin Island, in the Russian Far East. Pacific Environment and WWF, which delivered the petitions, requested a response from Exxon within two weeks, a deadline that passed without response.

Sakhalin Marine Federal Wildlife ReserveThe petition urged Exxon, Rosneft, and other oil companies operating in the area to suspend all oil and gas development activities near the critically endangered Western Gray Whale's annual feeding habitat off the coast of Sakhalin Island, and calls for the creation of the Sakhalin Marine Federal Wildlife Reserve.

Only 130 Western Gray whales remainingThere are only about 130 Western Gray whales remaining, including just 25 breeding females. These whales feed only in the summer and autumn, and their primary feeding area lies in and adjacent to Exxon's Sakhalin-1 project in the Piltun Bay area.

At risk of extinction"The Western Gray Whale population is at great risk of extinction," said Aleksey Knizhnikov, Oil & Gas Environmental Policy Officer, WWF-Russia. "It is imperative that all oil companies operating in its feeding area acknowledge the effects of their operations on the whales, which have just arrived to feed for the summer, and immediately halt all damaging industrial activities until the whales have left."

Western Gray Whale Advisory Panel (WGWAP),The Western Gray Whale Advisory Panel (WGWAP), composed of 11 prominent international scientists, met in April with representatives from Shell and Sakhalin Energy, as well as WWF and Pacific Environment to discuss how oil and gas development is affecting the whales' main annual feeding area off the Sakhalin Island. The WGWAP reiterated their urgent plea for a moratorium on industrial activities carried out by oil and gas companies that are expected to disturb Western Gray Whales in and near their primary summer/autumn feeding season (July through October).Whales being driven away from feeding groundsScientists on the panel have called for the moratorium following a large decrease in the number of whales in their annual feeding area near the shore during a period of loud industrial activity in the summer of 2008, including a seismic survey. This is significant because if the whales are displaced from this primary annual feeding area, they may have less success surviving and reproducing.

"Noise from oil and gas development is displacing the whales from their main annual feeding area," said Leigh Henry, Program Officer, WWF. "Any disturbances or additional stresses on the Western Gray Whale could push the already critically endangered population closer toward extinction."

Shell and Gazprom have complied with scientist's requestsSakhalin II project sponsors, including Shell, Gazprom, and other companies heeded scientists' warnings and postponed the seismic surveying they had planned for 2009. However, Exxon, Rosneft, and BP have so far refused to amend their summer 2009 construction and extraction plans in and around Piltun Bay.

"Immediate action is needed," says Doug Norlen, Policy Director for Pacific Environment. "Over 50,000 people have joined scientists in calling on Exxon, Rosneft, and others to stop their potentially destructive activities at Sakhalin Island and every single one of these people will be watching to see if these companies do the right thing for the Western Gray Whale."

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